so i finally did my first activation last weekend, been chasing for about 8 months and kept telling myself i'd get out there eventually. picked a 1-pointer near me, W4T/SU-something, i'd have to look up the exact reference but it was listed as an easy hike which it was, maybe 45 mins up.

anyway i brought my KX2 and a linked dipole i built over the winter, set up near the summit, called CQ SOTA on 40m and... nothing. sat there for probably 20 minutes, spotted myself on SOTAwatch and then got a little pile up which was great except my logging app kept crashing so i was just writing calls in the dirt with a stick basically. got my 4 contacts so the activation counts but man i was not prepared for how fast things move when people know you're up there.

my question i guess is do most activators pre-announce on the reflector or just self-spot when they get up there? and is there a good android logging app that people actually like for portable ops, i tried one but cant remember what it was called and it kept freezing on me

congrats on the first one, that feeling when the pileup hits is something else isn't it. for spotting, most people i know do both -- post an alert on SOTAwatch the night before with your expected summit time, then self-spot when you're actually set up and on freq. that way chasers can plan around you and you're not sitting there calling CQ into the void for 20 mins like you described. the alerts don't have to be exact, just a rough window and your planned bands.

for logging on android a lot of people swear by SOTA Goat but i think thats iOS only actually. on android i've heard good things about a couple options but honestly half the guys i've seen on summits are just using a paper log and entering it into the database when they get home. nothing wrong with that, especially when you're also trying to manage the radio and antenna and not fall off a ridge

yeah the logging thing got me too on my second activation, first one i just did paper. i use VK port-a-log now i think its called, or something close to that, works pretty well offline which matters a lot since you usually dont have great signal on summits anyway. some summits ive had zero cell service so any app that needs to hit the internet to do anything is kind of useless up there