so im a relatively new tech who just upgraded to general back in june and ive been hearing a lot of people talk about CQ WW coming up and also ARRL Sweepstakes and honestly i dont even know what order things happen in or what would be a good first contest to try. my setup is pretty modest, just a dipole up about 25 feet and a used IC-7300 i picked up a few months ago which i love by the way.

i tried to do a little bit of Field Day with my local club back in the summer and that was fun but kind of chaotic and i mostly just watched. i think i made like 4 contacts total over the whole weekend which felt embarrassing but everyone was really nice about it. anyway i guess my question is — is CQ WW too advanced for someone like me or should i just jump in and see what happens? also whats the deal with SOTA, is that a totally separate thing or does it count toward any of these contests?

honestly just jump in, thats the best advice i can give. CQ WW is huge and yeah it can feel overwhelming when you tune around and everyone sounds like theyre going 100mph but you dont have to operate like that. just find a station calling CQ, give your call, log the contact. thats literally it. the 7300 is a great radio for this and a dipole at 25 feet will work fine especially on 40 and 80. you wont win anything your first time but thats not really the point anyway.

and SOTA is kind of its own universe — it's more about portable/summit operating than contesting per se, though there are SOTA activations that happen during contests sometimes. worth looking into separately once you get the contest bug sorted out. there's a SOTA reflector and the website sotawatch.org has upcoming activations listed if youre curious.

Field Day not counting as chaotic is kind of impossible haha so dont feel bad about only making a few contacts, that happens to everyone their first time. the real contests coming up this fall are great for learning though. Sweepstakes is actually really fun and the exchange is simple enough that you can get into a rhythm pretty quick once you do it a few times.

one thing i'd suggest is download N1MM Logger+ before the contest and just get familiar with how it works. you dont need to be fast, just accurate. and honestly even if you only make 50 contacts in a whole weekend thats still a good experience and you'll be way more comfortable next year. welcome to the rabbit hole by the way, contesting is kind of addictive once it clicks.