so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i finally feel comfortable enough on HF to try checking into some nets. i've been mostly doing 2m stuff locally but my elmer keeps telling me to get on HF and just do it already. he mentioned something about the 40m and 80m nets being pretty active in the evenings but i honestly dont know where to start looking.

i found the ARRL net directory thing online but its kind of overwhelming, theres so many listed and i cant tell which ones are actually active vs just listed there and dead. does anyone have nets they regularly check into and would recommend for a newer guy? i'm in the midwest so time zones and all that matter i guess. also heard something about special event stations being a thing — like i saw a callsign that started with W1 something and had a weird suffix, is that related or totally different?

yeah the net directory can be a lot to sort through, totally understand. honestly the best thing i did when i was starting out was just pick one night a week and commit to it. i check into the 3916 net on 80m most sunday evenings, its been going forever and the net control guys are really patient with newer checkins. just give your callsign when they ask for checkins and thats pretty much it, nobody's gonna quiz you or anything.

for the special event stations — yeah thats a different thing. those are usually set up for a specific occasion, like a museum ships weekend or a historical anniversary or whatever. they get a special 1x1 callsign or a vanity call for the event. lots of people chase them for certificates or just for the novelty of the contact. keep an eye on the ARRL website and also qrz has a special event calendar that i check pretty regular. some of them are only on for a day or a weekend so you kinda have to pay attention. worth doing though, got a really nice certificate from a lighthouse event a couple years back.

80m nets in the evenings are where i'd start honestly, especially in winter when propagation is good. 40m can be great too but theres more QRM to deal with. i mostly do traffic nets these days through the NTS system but those have a specific format that might be a bit much when you're just getting comfortable.

one thing i'd say is dont stress too much about messing up your first few checkins. i completely blanked on my callsign once in my first month lol, net control just asked me to repeat and moved on. everyone starts somewhere