so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i mostly hang around on local repeaters but ive been trying to get into HF a bit more lately and honestly the whole unwritten rules thing is kind of overwhelming. like on the repeater everyones pretty clear about how things work, you wait for the tail, you id, whatever. but on HF its like a whole different world and i feel like im missing something.

the thing that confuses me most is knowing when its okay to just start calling CQ on a frequency versus listening first and how long you're supposed to listen before you decide its clear. i did the thing where i asked if the frequency was in use and got no response so i figured it was fine and then like 3 minutes into my CQ someone came back pretty annoyed saying they were in a QSO there. i felt terrible about it. is there a standard amount of time you should listen or is it just kind of a feel thing? also is calling QRL every time kind of expected or more of a suggestion

yeah that happens to everyone at least once, dont sweat it too much. the general rule most people follow is listen for at least a couple minutes, not just a few seconds, because sometimes theres a pause in a QSO that makes the freq sound empty when its not. propagation does weird things too where you might not hear one side of a contact at all depending on where theyre located relative to you.

calling QRL before you start is pretty much expected on HF, its just good practice. if you get nothing back after maybe 30 seconds or so, do it once more just to be sure, then go ahead. the guy who got annoyed at you probably should have just responded to your QRL check in the first place honestly, thats on him a bit too. as long as you made a genuine effort to check, youre doing the right thing. it gets more intuitive the more time you spend on the bands.

I had almost the exact same thing happen to me when I first got on 40m. I think part of it is also that some frequencies are kind of informally claimed by certain nets or regular ragchew groups at certain times of day and nobody really publishes that anywhere, you just kind of learn it over time by listening. Like there are some guys who have been meeting on the same freq every saturday morning for like 20 years and they get a little territorial about it even if its not technically theirs lol. just something to be aware of as you explore different bands and times.