so i finally did my first real SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 2 mile hike but man i was not prepared for how much the wind was gonna mess with everything. brought my ft-818 and a linked dipole and spent like 20 minutes just trying to get the thing up in a tree and the whole time my fingers were going numb. made 6 contacts on 20m which i guess is fine but i needed 4 so technically a success. didnt even try 40 because by that point i just wanted to go home. not complaining though it was honestly really fun and im already looking at other summits near me, just gotta figure out a better antenna situation because fighting that dipole in wind is rough

yeah wind is the enemy out there, i've had activations where i just gave up on a linked dipole entirely and went with a random wire and a 9:1 unun just to get something in the air fast. not as efficient but when its 40 degrees and gusting you just wanna get your 4 contacts and get off the hill. 6 contacts is solid for a first activation honestly, some people struggle to get to 4. what summit did you do?

the 818 is great for sota but yeah the antenna situation is always the thing that takes the longest for me to dial in. i switched to an end fed halfwave a while back and its so much easier to deploy than a dipole, especially solo. only downside is you need a decent anchor point but even a fishing pole works. congrats on the first one though, it gets way easier once you have a system