so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and mostly just done some casual ragchewing and a little bit of SOTA activating which i really love btw. but a few guys at my club keep telling me i need to try a contest and honestly the idea is kind of intimidating. like i know CQ WW is coming up and thats apparently a huge one, and theres always ARRL Field Day in june which i missed this year because i didnt really know what i was doing yet.

my question is i guess — is CQ WW too overwhelming for a first timer or should i just jump in and see what happens? i have a basic HF setup, nothing fancy, ic-7300 and a wire dipole up about 30 feet. also not sure if i should try phone or cw, im not super fast on cw yet maybe 10-12 wpm on a good day. someone mentioned doing the ssb weekend first which makes sense but i dunno. just looking for any thoughts from people who have been through this

CQ WW SSB is honestly one of the best contests to jump into as a newer op, dont let the size of it scare you. yeah theres like 35,000 logs submitted or something ridiculous but that just means the bands are absolutely packed and its actually easier to find people to work. you dont have to be competitive about it, just set a modest goal like work 50 countries or something and have fun with it. your ic-7300 and a dipole will do just fine for S&P (search and pounce) which is really all you need to do starting out. just tune around, find a strong station calling CQ contest, throw your call out, get the exchange, log it and move on. the exchange for CQ WW is pretty simple too, just signal report and your CQ zone. for North America thats zone 5 usually, look it up for your specific location though.

as for cw vs phone — do SSB for your first one, get comfortable with the flow of it. plenty of time to work the cw weekends later once you feel like you know what youre doing. good luck and seriously just get on the air, worst that can happen is you have a weird weekend and eat too much coffee

yeah what he said, also dont overlook some of the smaller contests if CQ WW feels like too much. there are state QSO parties happening basically every weekend in the fall and those are way more relaxed, fewer stations competing and people are generally pretty patient with slower ops. i did the Pennsylvania QSO party my first time and it was a really good way to learn the rythym of contest operating without feeling like youre getting run over.

also re: SOTA — if you like activating you might want to check out the SOTA contest events they do sometimes, i think theres a WW Flora Fauna thing too. different vibe than HF contesting but still scratches that competitive itch a little