so i finally did my first park activation yesterday, been putting it off for months because i kept telling myself i needed more gear or more practice or whatever excuse i could come up with. went out to a state park about 45 minutes from home, nothing fancy, just my KX2 and a random wire up in a tree, maybe 20 feet high at the apex which honestly wasnt great but it worked.

set up around 10am and started calling CQ POTA on 40m, wasnt expecting much but within maybe 3 minutes i had my first contact and then things just kind of snowballed from there. got my 10 contacts in about 25 minutes which i know isnt a huge pile but for a first time out i was pretty happy. stayed on for another hour and worked maybe another 20 stations, a lot of them hunters who clearly knew what they were doing way better than me.

the weird part was i had one guy come back to me like four times on slightly different frequencies and i couldnt figure out if he was trying to tell me something or just had a weird radio situation going on. also wasnt sure about logging on the go, i was using HAMRS on my phone which seemed fine but i fumbled a few exchanges because i was trying to type and hold the mic at the same time. anyone else use a physical notepad first and then enter into the app later? feels like that might be cleaner for me personally. also do you always need to spot yourself or will hunters find you anyway?

congrats on the first activation, that feeling of getting your 10 and knowing the park counts is pretty great isnt it. the guy coming back multiple times was probably just a hunter who wanted to make sure you got his callsign right in the log, sometimes they'll call again if they think the exchange was rough or if they werent sure you copied them correctly. totally normal, dont read too much into it.

on the logging question i personally use a small paper notepad for everything while im operating and then transfer it all into HAMRS or ADIF later when im back at the car. i find trying to type on a phone while youre also doing the radio thing just splits your attention too much, especially when you start getting a little pileup going. some people are great at it but i never got the hang of it. as for spotting yourself, yes you really should spot on POTA.app every time you move bands or even just to refresh your spot if its been 30 minutes or so. hunters are watching those spots constantly and if youre not on the map youre basically invisible. some will find you by scanning around but most are working off the activator list.

i did my second activation last month and also used HAMRS, it gets easier once you get a rhythm going but yeah the first time is a lot to manage at once. i actually just say the callsign out loud while i type it which sounds weird but it helps me not make mistakes. also if you havent already set up the quick exchange fields in the app before you leave home so you're not messing with settings while trying to call CQ.