so i finally did my first parks on the air activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house and honestly i was kind of nervous going in because ive heard people say the 10 contact minimum feels stressful when youre not sure if youll get spotted or whatever

i brought my ft-891 and a random wire antenna i just threw up in a tree, ran it up maybe 20 feet which wasnt ideal but it worked. spotted myself on the pota.app and within like 5 minutes i had a small pileup going on 40 meters. ended up with 34 QSOs in about an hour and a half which felt really good for a first time out

the thing nobody told me is how important it is to just call CQ POTA and say the park reference number clearly. i kept forgetting to say K-5765 and a few hunters asked me to repeat it. also logging on paper first then uploading to the site later was way less stressful than trying to use software in the field, at least for me

anyway if anyones been on the fence about trying an activation i'd say just go do it, the hunters are super patient and helpful. already planning my next one

congrats on the first one, that 34 QSO count is solid especially with a random wire. i remeber my first activation being a total mess, forgot to log half the calls correctly and had to do a lot of guessing when i uploaded lol

one thing that helped me a lot was using the POTA spots page on my phone while operating so i could see if anyone else was already on my park reference, avoids the awkward situation of two activators on the same frequency. also for 40m i usually try to get set up and spotted by like 9 or 10am local time before the band gets weird in the afternoon

the hunters really are a great group, very forgiving of new activators. just keep doing it, after 5 or 6 activations it all becomes second nature

this is super encouraging to read, im studying for my general right now specifically because i want to do POTA activations on HF. been hunting a little on 2m with my technician but its just not the same as getting out there with a wire in a tree you know

question - does it matter what time of year you do activations? like is winter worse for contacts or does it not really make a difference with the hunters always being around