so ive been licensed about 14 months now, general class, and i keep seeing people talk about CQ WW and ARRL Field Day and honestly it sounds like a lot of fun but also kind of intimidating. i did Field Day last year with my club but i was basically just watching and handing people coffee so that doesnt really count lol

this year i want to actually get on the air myself. i have an ic-7300 and a resonant dipole for 40m that i put up last spring. nothing fancy. i know CQ WW is coming up in october and there's also the ARRL sweepstakes in november i think? not sure which one to try first or if i should even bother without a better antenna situation. also been seeing some posts about SOTA activations which seems like a totally different thing but still gets logged for some contests? or does it? im honestly not sure how that works

any advice from people who have actually done these would be great, im not trying to win anything just want to get a feel for it

Field Day is genuinely the best starting point in my opinion, way more forgiving than CQ WW and most clubs are happy to have extra operators even if you're just learning the rhythm of contest exchanges. the exchange is simple too, just your class and ARRL section, nothing crazy to memorize

that said if you want to jump into CQ WW, your 40m dipole will absolutely work. october conditions are usually decent and you'll be surprised how many contacts you can make even running 100 watts to a wire. the exchange is just signal report and CQ zone, like 59 14 or whatever zone you're in. just go in expecting a learning experience and not a score and you'll have a blast. i did my first CQ WW with a g5rv and a kenwood ts-570 and still managed like 200 contacts over the weekend

SOTA is kind of its own universe — activators go up hills and summits and try to make 4 contacts to qualify the summit, and chasers log them. it does count for your regular logs but it's not really tied into the big HF contests the same way. totally worth doing though if you like hiking

honestly just jump in, worst thing that happens is you make some contacts and have fun. sweepstakes is actually a good one for newer operators because it keeps you domestic so youre not dealing with crazy pile-ups from dx stations at 3am. the exchange is a little weird at first (there's like 5 or 6 pieces of info you swap) but you get used to it fast

your 7300 is a great radio for contesting by the way, the bandscope alone makes it so much easier to find activity