so i finally did my first activation last weekend on W4T/SU-048 and honestly it was a mix of good and bad. i've been chasing summits for about 8 months now and kept telling myself i'd get out there and actually activate one, and my buddy finally dragged me up the trail saturday morning.

we brought the KX2 and a random wire end-fed, maybe 40 feet of wire, and i had this whole plan to get on 20m and 40m, make my 4 contacts, and call it a victory. well the wire kept wanting to fall out of the tree i slung it over and the SWR was all over the place on 40 which is usually my bread and butter. ended up just camping on 20m for about 45 minutes and i did get 6 contacts including one guy in Germany which honestly made my whole day.

didn't self-spot because i forgot to set up the SOTAwatch app before i left the parking lot and cell service at the summit was barely one bar. so i was basically calling CQ into the void hoping someone was tuning around. kinda surprised i got anyone at all. next time i'll actually prepare the night before like a normal person.

anyway just wanted to share since this community got me into chasing in the first place. any tips for dealing with flaky antenna setups on summits? the ground was really rocky so i couldn't stake anything down well either.

congrats on the first one, that's the hardest part honestly just actually doing it. the antenna situation you're describing is super common on rocky summits, i struggled with the same thing for a while. what helped me was switching to a linked dipole instead of the EFHW -- easier to get resonant without a tuner and if you have two trees or even one tree and a trekking pole on the other end you can usually get something usable up.

also on the spotting thing, Garmin inReach will let you spot via SMS even when there's zero cell service. bit of an investment but after my third summit where i had no signal i finally got one and its been worth every penny. you can also pre-spot on SOTAwatch before you leave if you have a rough idea of your start time, people will watch for you and sometimes just knowing spots are coming in keeps the chasers hanging around a frequency.

six contacts with a DX on a first activation with a wire falling out of a tree is actually a solid result, dont be too hard on yourself

oh man the rocky summit antenna problem is real, ive literaly just started tying the far end of my wire to my trekking pole and jamming the pole between some rocks. its janky but it works well enough. also a 9:1 unun can help clean up the SWR weirdness if the wire length isnt ideal. i picked up a cheap one and its made a big difference.

DX on your first activation though, thats awesome. i've done maybe a dozen activations now and still get excited when i get a european in the log.