so i finally did my first park activation yesterday at a state park about 40 mins from me, been wanting to do this for months. threw the KX2 in my backpack with a 40m end fed and a little 4ah lipo and drove out there. found a nice picnic table near the parking lot which felt kinda cheaty but whatever, rules say the park boundary counts right

anyway the EFHW tuned up fine on 40 but 20 was being weird, swr kept jumping around and i think the wire was too close to a metal fence post or something. managed 11 QSOs on 40m before a family set up right next to me with a bluetooth speaker blasting and i just kind of lost focus and packed up. still counts as an activation i think since i got 10, but man i was hoping for more. anyone else have the whole "random people want to chat about your radio" thing happen? spent like 20 mins explaining what amateur radio is to a guy and his kid which was actually pretty cool but yeah not great for the log

11 QSOs is a solid first activation honestly, dont stress it. the fence post thing sounds about right, i always try to keep my wire at least 10 feet from anything metal if i can help it. and yeah the curious bystanders are just part of it, ive had whole crowds gather at busy parks. one time a ranger came over and i thought i was in trouble but he just wanted to know what frequency the weather satellites use lol

for 20m you might try tweaking your counterpoise situation, sometimes just moving it a few feet makes a huge difference with an EFHW. what length counterpoise you running?

congrats on the first one man. i just started doing POTA this spring and im addicted. the people stopping by thing is so real, i set up a little laminated card that explains what im doing now and just point at it, saves so much time haha