so i finally got my general last spring and ive been mostly just doing some casual ragchewing on 40m and a little FT8 here and there. a buddy of mine who runs a local club keeps telling me i absolutely need to try CQ WW this october and honestly i dont really know what to expect. like i understand the basic concept, work as many stations as possible, get multipliers for different zones and countries, log everything. but the sheer scale of it seems kind of overwhelming from what ive read.

is it worth jumping in even if i only have a modest setup, running maybe 100 watts into a dipole up about 30 feet? i feel like id just be getting buried by the big gun stations with their stacked yagis and amplifiers running legal limit. also what software are people using these days for logging during a contest, im currently just using HRD for everyday stuff but i heard N1MM is kind of the standard for serious contesting.

also completely unrelated but has anyone been doing SOTA activations lately, i keep meaning to get out and try that before the weather gets too bad here in the northeast. seems like a totally different vibe from contesting but id like to try both before year end if possible.

Welcome to the dark side haha. Seriously though, CQ WW with 100w and a dipole is totally doable, dont let the big gun stations intimidate you. You probably wont win your category but thats kind of missing the point when you're just starting out. The first time I did it I was running a G5RV up maybe 25 feet and I still worked like 80 countries over the weekend, which blew my mind honestly. The bands are absolutely packed wall to wall and thats actually a good thing for you because stations are aggressively hunting contacts and they WILL work you even if your signal isnt huge.

N1MM+ is definitely the go-to for contesting, worth the small learning curve to set it up before the contest weekend so you're not fumbling with it when it starts. And yeah SOTA is a completely different animal, much more relaxed, more about the experience of getting to a summit than raw contact numbers. Both are worth doing for sure.

i just did my first Field Day back in june with our club and it kind of scratched that contesting itch for me a little bit, though i hear CQ WW is way more intense. for SOTA i finally did my first activation a few weeks ago up a local peak and it was honestly one of the best days ive had with this hobby so far, just you and a little radio and a wire antenna and suddenly people are calling you from all over. totally recommend getting out there before winter if you're in the northeast, some of the summits get real sketchy once theres ice and snow.