so i finally did my first proper WWFF activation last weekend, went out to a local nature reserve that's registered as a reference and managed about 45 QSOs over a couple hours which i was pretty happy with for a first attempt. used my ft-891 into a random wire strung between some trees, conditions on 40m were decent enough in the afternoon.

the part im fuzzy on is the log submission. i uploaded to WWFF logbook but im not sure if i did it right — like do i need to do anything separate for the hunters to get their credit or does it just happen automatically once the log is processed? i saw something about needing 44 QSOs for a valid activation which i just barely scraped over, kind of stressed me out at the time haha

also is there any advantage to spotting yourself on the WWFF cluster vs just the regular pxc cluster or wherever. i spotted myself once but wasnt sure if hunters specifically look at the wwff one

congrats on the first one, that feeling when you hit 44 is real isnt it. yes once your log is uploaded and processed the hunters credits are assigned automatically, you dont need to do anything extra on their end. just make sure your ADI file has the right reference number in there, thats the bit people mess up most often — the field needs to be exactly right or it wont match.

for spotting, definitely use the WWFF cluster as well as the main ones. a lot of dedicated hunters specifically watch wwff.eu or the app and they might miss you otherwise. i usually spot on both just to cover my bases. some folks also post a quick alert the day before on the WWFF facebook groups which helps people plan to listen out for you.

yeah the 44 QSO thing got me too on my first couple activations, i was basically refreshing my log count every few contacts toward the end. one tip someone gave me was to try and get on earlier in the day when more hunters in europe are active if youre in north america or vice versa, makes hitting the threshold way less stressful. also dont forget you can combine modes if youre set up for it, mixed ssb and ft8 counts fine i think as long as the reference is logged correctly on each contact