RE: New Turkey hunter needs help w/ equipment
Got my first bird with a 2 3/4" Winchester magnum turkey load with #4 shot out of my 870 express. Are you sure your gun won't handle 3" loads? My gun is >20 years old and it doesn't have magnum stamped on the receiver. The barrel is stamped use 3" shells in magnum receivers and 2 3/4" shells in all others. For the longest time, I didn't think I could shoot 3" shells, but found out on the Remington web site that if the last character in your serial number is an M, then its a magnum and you can shoot 3" Anyway, you should probably shoot different loads out of extra full chokes to see what patterns best out of your gun.
As for calls, I'd try to learn a couple of friction calls first. A great call to start with is Knight and Hale's Ol' Yeller. Sounds great and easy to use.
Hope some of this helps