so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from the house. been hunting parks for a few months and figured it was time to just go do one myself. packed up the KX2 and a 40m EFHW, got there early morning which was great because nobody else was around yet.

problem was the noise floor was absolutely terrible near the parking area, like S7-S8 just sitting there, i think there was some kind of electrical box or lighting system nearby. moved maybe 300 feet away and it dropped down to like S2 which was way more workable. anyway i ended up getting 12 QSOs on 40m and 3 on 20m before the battery started acting up. 15 contacts total so it counted as a valid activation right? i was sweating it for a while because the pileup wasnt exactly overwhelming lol.

also had a question about logging — i used HAMRS on my phone and it seemed fine but i noticed a few of the hunters were giving me their state and i wasnt sure if i needed to log that or if callsign and signal report is enough for the POTA upload. first time using the app in the field and kept second guessing myself.

congrats on the first one, 15 contacts definitely counts, the minimum is 10 so you had some wiggle room there. the noise floor thing is super common, i've learned to just do a quick walk around when i arrive and find the quietest spot even if its not the most convenient. sometimes its worth dragging the gear an extra hundred yards.

for HAMRS logging you really only need callsign, band, mode, and time to get it to upload properly to the POTA site. the state info some hunters give you is just them being chatty or logging it on their end. dont stress about capturing all of that, the upload format is pretty forgiving as long as the required fields are there. just export the ADIF when youre done and drop it into the activation log on the website. youll get the activation credit usually within a day or two once its processed.

yeah 10 is the magic number for a valid activation. i was so nervous on my first one too, kept counting in my head after every QSO. honestly once you hit like 12 or 13 you can kind of relax and just enjoy it.

one thing i'd add — next time try posting your spot on the POTA app or pota.app before you go on air, makes a huge difference in how fast the hunters find you. i went from zero contacts in 10 minutes to a steady pileup basically immediately once i started self-spotting. took me two activations to figure that out