so i finally got out to a local state park last weekend for my first ever solo activation, K-2987 if anyone knows it, and overall it went okay i guess but i had a real hard time getting spotted and getting hunters to find me. i was running about 25 watts into a end-fed halfwave from my truck and calling CQ POTA on 40m around 14.250 no wait that's 20m sorry, i mean i was on both bands at different times.

anyway the problem is i only made like 8 QSOs in about 90 minutes which i know the minimum is 10 so i didnt even qualify the park. i posted myself on the POTA spots website but i dont think i was doing it right because i never really saw any traffic come back to me after spotting myself. a buddy told me i should just text someone to spot me but that feels weird idk. is there a better way to do this or am i just missing something obvious here

dont feel bad at all, first activations are always a little rough. the self-spotting thing on pota.app is the right move but you gotta make sure your callsign and the park reference are entered exactly right or hunters wont see you in their filters. also 14.250 is a phone frequency on 20m so thats fine but a lot of POTA activity especially ssb tends to cluster around 14.260 to 14.280 range, worth trying different spots if youre not getting hits.

the other thing i'd say is just keep calling even when it feels dead. sometimes there's a little lag between when you spot yourself and when hunters notice. and honestly yeah asking a friend to spot you remotely is totally normal and accepted, people do it all the time especially if theyre monitoring the cluster anyway. nothing weird about it at all.

i had the same problem on my second activation lol. turned out i had the wrong park number entered in the spot. double check that because i was calling for like 45 mins and nothing, then someone texted me saying my spot showed a completely different park reference. fixed it and the pile up started almost immediately. also FT8 is kind of a cheat code if youre struggling to qualify, not as fun but it works