so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, W6 summit up near the ridge trail, nothing crazy just a 2 pointer but i was super nervous about the whole thing. packed way too much gear honestly, brought the ft-818 and a linked dipole and a whole bag of stuff i didnt even touch. set up on the summit and started calling on 40m and within like 10 minutes i had my 4 contacts and qualified the thing. ended up staying almost 2 hours just working people, had a pile up for a bit which i was NOT expecting at all for such a low point summit. the linked dipole strung between my hiking pole and a small tree worked way better than i thought it would, got a few 59 reports from guys pretty far out. anyway just wanted to share because ive been putting this off for like two years and its really not as complicated as i made it in my head

yeah the first one is always the most intimidating and then you get up there and realize its actually pretty chill. i remember standing on my first summit thinking i was gonna forget how to work the radio lol. 40m is great for that, you get a lot of chasers just sitting on the freq waiting. what kind of linked dipole setup were you using, did you build it yourself or buy one of those pre made ones?

nice one, two pointers are underated imo especially if theyre easy to access. i do a lot of POTA too and the park activations are even more chill if you want something with no elevation gain haha. bring more battery next time though, two hours on 40m will eat through a small lipo faster than you think depending on how hard you were driving it