so ive been a ham for about 8 months now (general class) and ive been watching youtube videos of people doing SOTA activations and it looks like exactly the kind of thing i want to do. i love hiking anyway so combining that with radio just seems perfect.

i registered on sotawatch and got my callsign set up but im a little confused about a few things. like when people say they need 4 contacts to qualify a summit, do all 4 have to be on different bands or can they all be on 2m? and do the chasers have to be in a certain distance away or anything like that? i feel like ive read conflicting things online.

also i was thinking of starting with a summit thats only like a 2 mile hike, W4T/SU-something i think, not totally sure of the reference yet. is it bad form to just show up without posting an alert first? i have a baofeng and a little HF rig (the xiegu g90) so i was thinking 40m would probably get me the most contacts. anyway any advice from people who have actually done this would be great, im probably overthinking it

welcome to the addiction lol, you picked a great combo with hiking and radio. to answer your questions - the 4 contacts can all be on the same band and mode, no requirement to spread them out. so yes 4 contacts on 2m FM counts just fine if you can get them. no distance requirement either, technically a contact 5 miles away is just as valid as a DX contact, though obviously HF gets you more options and makes it easier especially if you're on a less popular summit.

posting an alert ahead of time on sotawatch is not required but man it makes your life so much easier. chasers watch for alerts and will literally be sitting there waiting for you when you get to the top. i've done a couple unannounced activations and you end up just calling CQ into the void for a while until someone notices you on the RBN. the G90 is a solid rig for this by the way, good choice. just bring enough wire for a simple end fed or something and you'll be fine on 40m.

yeah what he said about the alert, seriously just post one even if its rough like 'ill be there sometime saturday morning' - chasers are really forgiving about timing. i did my first activation last spring and was terrified nobody would call me and i ended up with like 11 contacts in 20 minutes once i spotted myself on the cluster. the community around SOTA is genuinely one of the friendlier parts of ham radio imo.

one thing i'd add - double check that your summit actually has a valid reference on the sota database before you hike up, not every high point qualifies. the prominence requirement trips people up sometimes. looks like you're in Tennessee area maybe? there's a bunch of good ones in that region.