so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general class) and ive been listening to a lot of contest activity on 20m and 40m and it sounds like absolute chaos but also kind of exciting? i did a tiny bit of Field Day this past june with the local club but i was mostly just watching and logging for the more experienced guys, didnt really get to operate much on my own.

i've been looking at the calendar and CQ WW is coming up and also there's ARRL Sweepstakes not too far off. i honestly dont even know which one would be better to try as a first solo attempt. my setup is pretty modest, just a vertical antenna and 100w, nothing special. also been seeing a lot of people talk about SOTA activations but thats a whole different thing right? more portable operating than contesting?

anyway i guess my main question is — whats a good first contest to actually jump into and not feel totally lost, and any tips for someone whos basically a contest newbie would be really appreciated

CQ WW is fun but honestly it might be a little overwhelming as your very first solo contest just because the exchange has the zone numbers in it and if you dont already know your CQ zones it slows you down a lot at first. Sweepstakes has that long exchange too which trips people up.

if i were pointing a new person at something i'd probably say look at the ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone first just because the US and Canada focus means you're not getting buried under a pile of european stations at 3am, or honestly the 10m contest in december is great for newer folks when the band is open because it's simple exchange and 10m can be wild during a good solar flux period. but really just pick one and jump in, theres no wrong answer. you'll make mistakes and feel lost and thats totally normal, everyone does.

and yeah SOTA is a different world, its more about portable activating summits and the points system, not really a contest in the traditional sense though some people do chase it hard during special events. worth exploring later once you get the contesting bug out of your system, or maybe it'll scratch a different itch entirely.

Field Day is actually a great stepping stone and it sounds like you already got a taste so youre not starting from zero. honestly just jump into something, the worst that happens is you feel overwhelmed and take a break and thats fine.

one thing i'll say is get N1MM or at least some logging software set up before you try a serious contest, trying to paper log in a fast paced contest when youre still figuring out the exchange is a lot to handle at once. and if your club does a station for sweepstakes see if you can get some air time there first before doing it solo at home