so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, took the FT-818 and a random wire up a little hill about 45 mins from the house. nothing crazy elevation wise but it counted. was honestly kinda nervous about the whole thing because ive read so many posts about people struggling to get their 4 contacts and i wasnt sure the antenna situation was gonna work out up there with all the trees

ended up making like 11 contacts on 20m SSB in maybe 40 minutes, a few chasers who clearly knew what they were doing and a couple random guys who had no idea what SOTA even was but were happy to give me a contact anyway. the wire just draped over a branch at like 20 feet or so, nothing fancy, ran the radio off a little 3ah lipo and had plenty of juice left over. overall really stoked on how it went, already planning the next one

that 818 is a great little rig for sota, ive used mine probably 30 times in the field and it just keeps working. the battery life is what surprised me the most when i switched from running a bigger radio. what wire setup were you using, end fed or just a dipole thrown up there?

nice, 11 contacts on your first go is pretty solid actually. i totally bombed my first one because i forgot to spot myself and just sat there calling CQ into nothing for like 20 minutes before i figured out what was going on lol. make sure you get the SOTA spotter app on your phone before the next one, makes a huge difference