I use a palm radio pico paddle attached to the underside of the FT817 when doing on the air cw. But i go on VBAND website to practice a lot, and for that i detach the key from the radio connect it to the phone with a circuit and just hold it with the left hand while sending with the right hand. Bottom line being i think anything is possible as long as you get used to it. The paddle in hand thing works for me with the pico paddle because its small and light. with a regular sized paddle other will probably not be practical.
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I like paddles for the practicality and because you can’t send badly spaced/timed characters, that helps to build good “mental timing”. And i got used to “squeezing” sending some letters using both sides of the paddle simultaneously.?
But I haven't been doing CW for as long as you.
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73 Bruno
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Bruno R.