so i finally did my first Parks on the Air activation last weekend at a state park about 45 mins from my house, K-4522 if anyone's familiar with it. i was pretty nervous honestly because ive been licensed for about 8 months and this was really my first time operating outside of my home shack setup. threw the KX2 in a backpack with a 40m end fed and just kind of went for it.

ended up getting 14 contacts in maybe an hour and a half which i think qualifies? i was posting spots on the POTA app but i honestly wasnt sure if i was doing that right. a couple hunters found me on 40m and that was really cool, felt like the whole system was actually working the way its supposed to.

my question is about the log submission — do i need to submit an ADIF file or can i do it another way? i was using paper logging in the field and then transcribed everything into HAMRS when i got home. also is there a time limit for submitting after the activation? i have a trip coming up and wont be home for almost two weeks.

congrats on the first activation, 14 contacts definitely qualifies, you only need 10 to count it. and yeah HAMRS exports ADIF just fine, thats actually what most POTA folks use in the field. when you're on the submission page on the POTA website it'll just ask you to upload the file, pretty straightforward.

as for the time limit i believe you have a year to submit but dont quote me on that, i usually just do mine within a day or two so i dont forget details. main thing is make sure your park reference number is right in the header and that your callsign matches your account. ive seen people mess that up and it causes headaches getting the activation credited.

also if you were posting spots yourself mid-activation, good instinct. a lot of new activators dont realize how much that helps hunters find you. some parks get almost no traffic if nobody knows youre there.

oh man K-4522, i hunted someone there like two months ago on 20m i think. small world. welcome to the rabbit hole by the way, fair warning POTA is kind of addicting and now youre going to start looking at every road trip as a potential activation opportunity lol

the HAMRS to ADIF workflow is exactly what i do too. one thing i'd add is double check that your timestamps are in UTC in the log before you submit, that tripped me up on my second activation and i had to resubmit. nothing major but just saves a headache.