so i finally did my first activation saturday, drove up to a summit about 45 mins from home, nothing crazy just a W4 summit worth 2 points i think. brought my ft-818 and a random wire i threw together last week, had no idea if the feedline situation was gonna work but it did. took maybe 20 minutes to get set up which felt slow but whatever. got 12 contacts in about 35 minutes, all on 40m SSB, one guy came back to me on 20 and gave me a signal report i wasnt expecting at all considering i was running like 5 watts. the whole thing was just really fun, way more fun than sitting at home calling CQ into the void. already looking at summits for next weekend tbh

nice, 12 contacts with 5w and a random wire is solid for a first activation. you get your 4 for the qualifier? thats the only thing that matters lol. i remember my first one i was so nervous i forgot to log two of the contacts and had to try and remember the callsigns later. also 40m was probably the right call, 20 can be weird depending on time of day and where youre trying to reach. keep an eye on sotawatch next time and spot yourself before you start calling, makes a huge difference

yeah POTA got me into portable ops too and now i basically cant sit still at home anymore haha. do you use a linked dipole or just the one wire? ive been going back and forth on antenna options for backpack stuff, the random wire works but sometimes tuning takes forever and i feel like im wasting battery on the tuner