so ive been a licensed ham for about 8 months now and ive been hunting POTA activators for a while just to get comfortable making contacts, and i finally decided to just go do my first activation at a state park about 20 minutes from my house. its listed as K-4892 if anyone wants to hunt me, ill probably be on around 10am local time tomorrow.

my plan is to bring my KX2 and a 20m end fed, throw it up in a tree if i can find a good branch, and just try to get the 10 contacts. i know thats the minimum but honestly im just hoping to make it through without completely blanking on exchange info or forgetting to log something. ive been practicing with HAMRS on my phone so hopefully that works out.

any last minute tips from people who have done a bunch of these? im mostly worried about finding a frequency thats not already in use and whether i should self spot or wait for someone to spot me. i know i can use POTA.app to self spot but i wasnt sure if thats considered bad form for a first timer or something

self spotting is totally fine, thats literally what the system is set up for. dont be shy about it at all. honestly once you get spotted the pile up will come to you pretty fast especially on a weekend morning, 20m should be hopping. just make sure your spot has the right park reference and your callsign is correct before you hit submit, ive seen guys spot themselves with a typo and then wonder why nobody shows up lol

for frequency, just tune around and listen for a bit, if its clear give a quick QRL? and if nothing comes back youre probably good. dont stress too much about the exchange, its literally just signal report and your park number. hunters are patient, we've all had nervous activators and honestly we kind of root for you. good luck tomorrow

oh man i did my first one a few months ago and i was the same way. i think i practiced saying my callsign phonetically like 50 times the night before which is kind of embarrassing to admit. the HAMRS app worked great for me, just double check that you have the park loaded before you start so the contacts log to the right reference. one thing i wasnt expecting was how fast it went once i got spotted, like hunters are out there constantly watching the app and they come out of nowhere. it was actually really fun and way less scary than i thought. you got this