so i finally did my first activation last weekend, been chasing for a few months and figured id just go for it. picked W4T/SU-001 because its not too far and i knew the trail pretty well from hiking before i got my ticket. threw my KX2 in the pack with a 40m end fed and a small 4ah lipo, maybe 6 pounds total which honestly wasnt bad at all.

got to the summit and spent like 20 minutes just trying to figure out where to hang the antenna, there were some scrubby trees but nothing ideal. ended up doing a sort of sloper off a hiking pole which i was not confident about but whatever. spotted myself on SOTAwatch and within maybe 3 minutes i had a pileup going, like an actual pileup, i was not ready for that mentally. ended up with 14 QSOs on 40 which qualifies the summit so im counting it as a win even though i fumbled a few exchanges and one guy had to ask for my callsign twice which was embarrassing.

the descent was where things got interesting because a storm came in faster than the forecast said and i was scrambling to pack up. antenna came down fine but i sort of shoved everything in and the KX2 took a bit of a tumble inside the bag, seems okay but made my heart stop for a second. anyway point is i think im hooked, already looking at summits for next month. anyone have tips for working sota on 2m fm as a backup when HF conditions are bad? i have a baofeng but i know thats not exactly ideal

congrats on the first one, that feeling when the pileup starts is something else isnt it. dont sweat the fumbled exchanges, everyone does it at first and the chasers are generally pretty patient with activators especially when the signal is decent.

for 2m FM backup a baofeng will actually work fine for SOTA honestly, the chasers that are local will hear you no problem and for mountain top operations even a rubber duck does better than you'd expect. the bigger issue is just making sure you self spot on 146.52 or whatever local calling freq and also post it to SOTAwatch so people know to listen. some activators also use the SOTA spotter app to alert before they leave the car which gives chasers more lead time. id say just get comfortable with HF first though, 2m can be hit or miss depending on your region and how many local chasers are tuned in on any given day.

yeah the antenna placement thing is the eternal SOTA struggle lol. ive done probably 30 activations now and i still spend too long fussing with that part. one thing that helped me was just committing to the linked dipole instead of the end fed, a bit more to set up but the pattern is more predictable when youre doing a sloper situation.

also get a foam pad or wrap for the KX2 if youre not already, mine lives in a piece of cut foam inside a dry bag and it survives some pretty rough handling. that radio is tough but still