so ive been trying to get back into CW after like a 15 year break and honestly its humbling. got a Begali Simplex paddle which i love but something is off with my sending and i cant tell if its the keyer settings in my radio or if im just rusty (probably both lol)

the dits and dahs sound kind of run together when i play back recordings of myself. im running the keyer built into my IC-7300 and ive been messing with the weight adjustment but not sure i really understand what im doing. currently at around 18 wpm which felt comfortable when i was active years ago but now it sounds like mush to me. do i just slow way down and rebuild or is there something specific i should be tweaking first

also not sure if my paddle tension is set right either. i feel like im squeezing harder than i should be to get clean contacts. any tips from people who've been through this would be great

welcome back to the addiction haha. ok so a few things - first yeah 18 wpm after a long break is probably too fast, dont be proud about it just drop it down to like 12 or 13 and rebuild muscle memory. your brain and fingers need to reconnect and trying to push speed just reinforces bad habits.

on the keyer weight, the IC-7300 default is usually fine honestly, i wouldnt mess with it too much until your sending is more consistent. the weight adjustment changes the ratio of dit length to the spaces and if you're already sending mushy it can make diagnosing the real problem harder.

the paddle tension thing is a big deal though. you really want the gap set so you barely have to move your fingers, like the contacts should almost close on their own with just a light touch. if you're squeezing hard you're going to get fatigue and timing errors. grab a small screwdriver and open the gap up slightly less than you think you need, then practice just resting your fingers and using wrist motion rather than squeezing. took me a while to get that click but once it happened my sending cleaned up a lot.

also try recording yourself at the slower speed and comparing. n1mm has a built in thing for this or just use audacity. you'll hear the improvement pretty fast once you slow down.

im kind of in the same boat, just passed my general and trying to learn CW from scratch so take this with a grain of salt but i read a lot about this - apparently the iambic mode on built in keyers can trip people up if they're used to a certain squeezing style. like mode A vs mode B handles the last element differently and some people swear by one over the other. might be worth checking which mode your 7300 is set to and trying both to see if one feels more natural. thats about the limit of my knowledge on it but figured id mention it in case nobody else does