ok so i finally sat down and actually participated in CQ WW SSB instead of just listening to it like i have the past two years. ran about 6 hours total across saturday and sunday from my modest setup, just a 100w rig and a wire dipole in the attic, and i ended up working like 47 countries which i honestly did not expect at all.

the pileups were insane, especially on 15m saturday afternoon when the band opened up. i had no idea what i was doing half the time, kept forgetting to give my full callsign and exchange in the right order, had one guy pretty annoyed at me i think lol. but by sunday morning i kind of had a rhythm going.

anyway it got me thinking about ARRL Field Day next year because i know our local club does a big setup but ive never joined them for it. is that worth going to as a newer op? and also someone mentioned SOTA to me at the club meeting last month but i still dont fully understand how that works — like do you have to hike to a specific summit that's on some list? or can it be any hill basically. also wondering if there are any good contests coming up before the end of the year that would be good for someone still learning the ropes

Field Day is absolutely worth it, honestly its probably the best thing a newer ham can do to get comfortable operating under a little pressure with experienced people around. most clubs are super welcoming and youll learn more in one Field Day weekend than months of just sitting on your home station. bring snacks, wear comfortable shoes, and dont be shy about asking to jump on one of the radios.

for SOTA yeah you got the basic idea right — there's a specific database of summits at sotadata.org.uk and each one has a point value based on how difficult it is, and you have to activate from within a certain distance of the actual summit. not just any hill unfortunately, but there are probably more activatable summits near you than you'd think. the chasing side is fun too if you dont want to hike right away, you can just work activators from home and get points that way.

for contests before year end — ARRL Sweepstakes CW is coming up, then the phone version a couple weeks later. Sweepstakes is US/Canada only so the exchange is simpler, good one to practice on. CQ WW CW will also be huge if you want to try the morse side of things.

yeah CQ WW will do that to you haha, first time I actually tried to operate it seriously instead of just tuning around I was hooked. 47 countries with an attic dipole is genuinely solid, dont let anyone tell you otherwise.

one thing that helped me early on was just logging everything even the dupes and then reviewing afterward to see where i was making mistakes with the exchange. N1MM logger has a built in check that'll yell at you if you already worked someone so that saves some embarrassment in the pileup