so ive been licensed about 8 months now and a buddy at my club keeps telling me to just jump into CQ WW this fall and see what happens. honestly the whole thing feels a little overwhelming when i look at the rules page, like theres zones and multipliers and exchange formats and i dont even know what rig settings people run for a contest like that

i did Field Day with the club last june which was great, we had a really solid setup in the park and i worked maybe 40 contacts on SSB which i know isnt much but it felt like a big deal at the time. SOTA activations ive done a handful of and those feel more relaxed obviously. but a full 48 hour contest situation is just a different animal

does anyone have advice on kind of easing into something like CQ WW without embarrassing yourself or stepping on people constantly. also not sure if i should try SSB or try CW, my code is slow but im working on it. any thoughts welcome

Field Day counts, seriously dont undersell that experience. you already know the basic rhythm of contest operating, the exchange just changes depending on which contest you're in. for CQ WW on SSB the exchange is just your signal report and your CQ zone, so like 59 05 if you're in zone 5, thats really it. once you work a few stations it becomes totally automatic

my honest advice is dont try to run a frequency your first time out. just search and pounce, tune around and call stations who are already CQing. you'll rack up contacts without having to hold a frequency against guys running a kW and a beam. log with N1MM or even just paper if you want to keep it simple, but N1MM is pretty much the standard and theres good tutorials on youtube for the basic setup

CW at slow speed is gonna be rough in a big contest like that, the pileups move fast. stick with SSB for your first one and maybe try CW later in a slower contest like a state QSO party where people are more patient

yeah just get on and make some noise, thats all there is to it honestly. i remember my first CQ WW i was terrified of doing something wrong and i think i made like 60 contacts total and was thrilled. nobody is judging you out there, everyone was new once

one thing i'll say is keep an eye on the ARRL contest calendar and the WA7BNK contest calendar site, they list everything coming up with links to rules. there's also usually some SOTA summits that overlap with contest weekends which can be fun if you want to do a portable activation and also pick up some contest contacts at the same time. i did that once during a state QSO party and it was a blast even though my signal from the summit was only like 5 watts