so ive been trying to learn CW properly for about three months now and i finally broke down and bought a decent set of paddles (Begali Traveler, used) instead of fighting with that cheap straight key i started on. the problem is im sending garbage. like i know what i want to send but my hand just isnt cooperating and i keep squeezing the wrong side or holding too long and getting extra dits where i dont want them.

my keyer is a Winkeyer USB through N1MM and ive been messing with the speed, currently sitting around 15 wpm because thats where i can almost copy in my head. but the sending is so much worse than the receiving at this point it's embarrassing. i made a contact last week and the other guy had to ask me to repeat my callsign like four times. felt pretty bad about that.

is this just a muscle memory thing that takes time or am i doing something fundamentally wrong? also is iambic mode A vs mode B actually something i should care about right now or just ignore it until im more comfortable?

oh man the mode A vs mode B thing drove me crazy when i was learning. short answer: just pick one and forget about it for now, most people default to mode B and never think about it again. the differences only really show up in very specific squeeze patterns and honestly until your hands are doing stuff automatically you wont even notice.

the real thing that helped me was slowing way down, like embarrassingly slow, and just doing drills on a practice oscillator without even being on the air. there's a reason the Koch method has you start slow and build up - your brain needs to hear the whole character as a sound, not count dits and dahs. 15 wpm might actually be too slow if you're counting instead of listening. some people swear by jumping to 20+ wpm receive with longer gaps between characters so your brain is forced to recognize the pattern not decode it piece by piece.

also check your paddle tension and spacing. the Begali Traveler has pretty fine adjustments and if the gap is too wide you have to work harder for each contact which tires out your hand and causes exactly the kind of mis-squeezes you're describing. took me months to get mine dialed in right.

yeah totally normal, dont beat yourself up. i was probably at six months before my sending felt even halfway decent and i still have bad days. the callsign repeat thing happens to everyone early on, most ops on the other end have been there and they're patient about it.

one thing that helped me was recording myself with an audio recorder and actually listening back. its brutal to hear but you catch stuff you dont notice while youre sending. like i had no idea i was rushing my O's until i heard it played back.