so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and a buddy at the club keeps telling me i need to try CQ WW this october. i finally got my HF privileges sorted out (general class) and ive been making some random contacts here and there on 40m and 20m but nothing serious. i dont really know what to expect from a contest that big. like is it complete chaos on the bands or is it actually manageable if youre just doing it casually for fun and not seriously trying to win anything

also ive been reading a bit about SOTA and wondering if thats something totally separate or if people sometimes do SOTA activations during contest weekends. probably a dumb question but i genuinely dont know how all these different events interact with each other. any advice from people who have actually done CQ WW would be really appreciated, especially if you remember what it was like your first time jumping in

CQ WW is absolutely wild your first time, not gonna sugarcoat it. the bands are packed wall to wall and if you havent heard 20m during a major contest weekend you are in for a surprise. but honestly that chaos is also what makes it fun, theres always someone to work and you can rack up contacts pretty fast once you get the exchange down. for CQ WW phone its just your callsign, signal report, and your CQ zone. pretty simple once you do it a few times.

on the SOTA question, yeah people do try to combine things but its kinda tricky. SOTA has its own activator and chaser rules and a summit to summit contact during a contest can count for both but you have to log them correctly for each program separately. some guys love doing it that way, get the summit points AND contest points in one trip. just depends how organized you want to be about it. my advice for your first CQ WW though is just get on the air, dont overthink the strategy, and have fun with it. even a few dozen contacts your first time feels great.

welcome to the addiction haha. i remember my first contest, i think it was actually ARRL Sweepstakes not CQ WW but same idea. i was so nervous to even call CQ that i spent the first hour just searching and pouncing on other peoples CQs which is totally fine by the way, thats what most new contesters do. you dont have to run a frequency if it feels too intimidating at first.

Field Day is actually maybe a better starting point if you havent done that yet, its more of a community event and usually your club sets up somewhere and you can just show up and get on the radio with people who know what theyre doing. CQ WW is more serious but still very approachable. just make sure your logging software is set up before the contest starts, N1MM is free and most people use it. dont try to paper log a major contest trust me on that one