so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general) and everyone keeps telling me i need to try a contest to really get comfortable operating. CQ WW SSB is coming up at the end of october and i figured maybe i'd give it a shot but honestly the whole thing is kind of overwhelming to look at from the outside.

like i get the basic idea, you make contacts and log them and theres some kind of multiplier system for zones or countries or something. but i dont really understand how you actually operate during one. do you just sit on a frequency and call CQ contest or do you tune around and answer other peoples CQ? also is it rude to jump in as a total newbie when all these serious contesters are going at it? i feel like id be in the way

also been looking at Field Day results from this past june and SOTA stuff too, those seem a little more relaxed? or am i wrong about that. anyway any advice on just getting started would be great, even if its just "dont worry about your score just get on the air" which is probably the answer lol

Field Day is definitely more relaxed, its more of a club social event that happens to involve a lot of radio operating. good intro but its only once a year so dont wait for that if CQ WW is right around the corner.

for CQ WW just do search and pounce your first time through. tune around, find someone calling CQ contest, give them your callsign and exchange. the exchange for CQ WW is just your signal report and your CQ zone, thats it. zone 5 if youre in most of the US. you listen to how other people do it for like 20 minutes and youll have it figured out. nobody is going to be annoyed at you for calling them, thats literally what they want, more contacts. the only way you get in the way is if you try to hold a frequency you cant defend but youre not going to do that your first time out anyway.

SOTA is a totally different animal, thats more about the hiking and activating summits, the radio part is almost secondary to some folks. great fun but not really the same as contesting. try CQ WW even if its just for a couple hours saturday afternoon, you dont have to go the whole 48 hours

yeah what he said about search and pounce. i did my first CQ WW maybe two years after i got my ticket and i was nervous too but honestly once you make your first handful of contacts it just clicks. the pileups on the big DX stations can be frustrating but dont let that put you off, there are plenty of stations that are easy to work especially on 15 and 10 if the bands cooperate.

one thing i wish someone told me earlier — get N1MM or even just use the ARRL contest logger, logging on paper during a fast contest is rough. also write your exchange on a sticky note and put it on your monitor so you dont blank on it when somone comes back to you fast. sounds dumb but trust me