so ive been licensed for about 14 months now and i keep hearing people talk about CQ WW like its this massive deal and honestly after looking at the scores from last year i get why. the numbers are just wild. anyway i signed up to do a single op entry this weekend, just low power from my home station which is nothing special, an IC-7300 into a dipole up about 30 feet in my backyard. i dont really have expectations of placing anywhere but i figured it would be a good way to actually use the bands for something and practice my exchange

my biggest worry honestly is just keeping up with the rate when it gets busy. i tried doing a small sprint a few months ago and i fell apart pretty fast when the pile got going. do you guys just slow down and ask for repeats or is that gonna kill your rate too much? also not sure if i should be running or search and pounce the whole time, seems like running is better for points but i cant hold a frequency for anything with my setup

also field day was my first real contest experience and i loved it but that felt way more relaxed than this seems like it will be, there were people around helping and stuff. this is just gonna be me and the radio for 48 hours lol

CQ WW was my first real DX contest too and yeah it's a step up from field day for sure. honestly the best thing i can tell you is dont try to run if it's not working, there's zero shame in search and pounce your whole first time through. you'll still work a ton of stations and you'll learn where the DX is hiding on each band. 15m and 20m are probably going to be your best friends depending on propagation that weekend.

for the exchange just remember it's your signal report and your CQ zone, that's it, nothing complicated. zone 4 or 5 probably depending where you are. just have it written on a sticky note next to the radio until it becomes automatic. and dont stress about rate, your first WW is really just about figuring out how the whole thing flows. log everything even the dupes because sometimes the software catches stuff you dont. good luck and have fun with it

SOTA is a totally different animal than WW if you ever want to try something more relaxed in between contests, just throwing that out there. but yeah WW is a great time, even a modest station can rack up some solid contacts especially if the bands cooperate. 15 meters has been doing some surprising things lately so keep an eye on that one