so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, W4V/SH-001, nothing crazy but it was my first time hauling gear up a hill and actually making contacts from a summit. brought my KX2 and a homebrew linked dipole, took me forever to get the antenna up because wind was ridiculous. made 4 contacts on 40m and 2 on 20m which i guess qualifies but barely lol. the whole thing felt chaotic compared to operating from home but in a good way i think. spotted myself on SOTAwatch and that helped a lot, had a small pileup which was wild to experience for the first time. gonna do it again for sure but maybe pick a calmer day next time

nice work on the first one. 6 contacts is solid especially if conditions werent cooperating. i remember my first activation i forgot to bring a pen to log with and had to use a stick to scratch callsigns in the dirt lol. the KX2 is a great choice for SOTA, i run the same rig. one thing that helped me was pre-spotting on sotawatch before i even left the trailhead so chasers know roughly when to expect you. saves time fumbling with the phone when youre already tired from the hike

yeah POTA is a bit more chill if you want something similar but dont have to worry about altitude lol. i do both and honestly the park activations are good practice for the field setup stuff before committing to dragging everything up a mountain. congrats on the first summit tho