so ive been licensed for about two years now and mostly just do casual ragchews and some local nets but my elmer keeps telling me i should try a big contest at least once. CQ WW SSB is coming up and i figured why not just jump in and see what happens. i dont really have a serious station setup, just a Yaesu FT-991A into a fan dipole up about 30 feet, nothing fancy.

my main worry is that ill just be spinning the dial hearing wall to wall signals and not be able to work anybody because my signal is too weak or i dont know the exchange format well enough. i looked it up and its just signal report plus CQ zone right? zone 5 for me here in Ohio. seems simple enough but im sure ill mess something up in the heat of the moment.

also wondering if its worth trying to do ARRL Sweepstakes instead since i heard thats more of a domestic thing and maybe less overwhelming. or should i just do both lol. and has anyone done SOTA activations specifically timed around major contests to combine the two? curious if thats even a thing people do or if it would be pointless.

CQ WW is honestly a great first big contest experience even if you dont have a monster station. The exchange really is just 59 and your zone so dont overthink that part. What trips people up is the pace, especially on phone, guys are throwing their callsigns really fast and sometimes youll just have to ask for a repeat and thats totally fine, nobody is going to yell at you for it.

Your setup sounds perfectly fine for getting on the board. A fan dipole at 30 feet will get you plenty of contacts especially if conditions cooperate, and right now the cycle is treating us pretty well so 15m has been surprisingly good for DX. I did my first CQ WW with an indoor dipole and still had a blast, came away with maybe 200 contacts and learned a ton.

Sweepstakes is great too but the exchange is actually more complicated if you ask me, you gotta send a serial number, precedence, call, check, and section, so for a true first timer id actually say CQ WW is easier to get your feet wet. Do both if you have the time, there's no rule against it and Field Day next summer would be another good one to find a local club to operate with.

yeah the SOTA + contest combo is kind of a thing but its pretty niche. some activators will pick a summit during say the ARRL 10m contest and try to work contest stations from the top but honestly most of the time the contest guys arent looking for your summit reference and you're not really optimized for either activity at that point. i tried it once during a VHF contest and it was more chaotic than fun tbh

just do CQ WW on its own first and see if contesting clicks for you. some people love it some people find it kind of soulless after a few hours of 59 5 59 5 over and over. no shame either way.