So I finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me, been meaning to do one for ages and kept putting it off. Ended up using my IC-705 with a wire dipole slung between two trees, nothing fancy. The reference I activated was KFF-XXXX (well one of the state forest ones anyway) and I managed to get 44 QSOs in about 2.5 hours which I was pretty happy with.

My question is about logging -- I used HAMRS out in the field but I'm a bit confused about uploading to WWFF Logsearch vs just sending it to ADIF. Do I need to do both or does one feed the other automatically? I read the instructions on the website and honestly it wasnt super clear to me. Also do the contacts I make count toward the hunters award for the people I worked, like do they even need to know its a WWFF activation for it to count for them?

Also side note -- operating in the woods is just incredible. Had a deer walk about 15 feet from me while I was in a pileup on 40m, didnt even care I was there. Highly recommend to anyone who hasnt tried it yet.

Congrats on the first activation, 44 QSOs is a solid start honestly. On the logging question -- you want to upload directly to the WWFF Logsearch portal, thats the one that actually counts for the program. LoTW and the others are separate and dont cross over automatically. When you upload to WWFF Logsearch your contacts get credited to the hunters on the other end whether they knew it was a WWFF activation or not, the system matches callsigns. So yeah they get credit even if they just stumbled onto your frequency, which is nice.

HAMRS exports ADIF just fine and the WWFF portal accepts that, so your workflow should be pretty straightforward. Just make sure your ADIF has the MY_SIG and MY_SIG_INFO fields populated with WWFF and the reference number or some uploaders get picky about that. Might be worth double checking before you submit.

the deer thing is so real, i had a whole family of turkeys just wander through my operating spot last spring, completely unbothered. one of them almost knocked over my mast support i think it bumped the guy line. anyway welcome to WWFF its kind of addictive once you start looking at the map and realizing how many references are within driving distance