so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from me, K-4566 if anyone's familiar with it. i was honestly pretty nervous going in because ive never really done portable ops outside of a field day and even then i was mostly just logging for someone else.

brought my KX2 and a 40m end fed half wave just thrown up in a tree with a 25 foot line, nothing fancy. got there around 9am and had the whole picnic shelter to myself which was great. took me way longer than it should have to get everything set up, like maybe 40 minutes just because i was fumbling around and second guessing my antenna height.

anyway once i finally started calling CQ POTA on 40m i was getting responses within like 30 seconds. completely caught me off guard. ended up with 34 QSOs in about an hour and a half, most of them hunters which i gather are just people who specifically look for POTA activators. a few of the hunters were super patient with me when i stumbled over my exchange which i appreciated.

one thing i wasnt ready for was how fast the pileup moved, even a small one. i had maybe 4 or 5 callers at once at one point and i just kind of froze up. managed to work through it but definitely need to practice that. also spotted myself on the POTA website which made a huge difference in getting contacts early on, highly recommend doing that if you havent already.

going to try a two-fer next month, theres a spot near me where two park boundaries overlap. anyone done one of those? any tips for logging them correctly?

34 QSOs on your first activation is honestly a solid number, a lot of people struggle to get the 10 minimum the first time out just because of nerves or antenna issues. sounds like you did everything right.

for the two-fer logging, the way it works is you just log each QSO twice in your ADIF file, once with each park reference. when you upload to the POTA website it'll sort it out. some folks use HAMRS or Fast Log Entry and those handle it pretty cleanly. just make sure you're actually physically inside both park boundaries when you operate or it doesnt count, some of those overlaps are smaller than they look on the map and its worth double checking with the satellite view on the parks website before you go.

the pileup thing gets easier, just take your time and dont be afraid to say "please stand by" if you need a second. hunters are generally very understanding, theyre just happy youre out there activating.

oh man i remember my first activation, i also froze when more than two people called at once lol. it just takes a few times before your brain figures out how to pull one callsign out of the noise. some people say work by number during a pileup but i never really got the hang of that myself, i just kind of listen for whoever is loudest and go from there.

also 40m end fed in a tree is basically the classic POTA setup at this point, you really cant go wrong with it. im curious what you used for your portable power setup if you dont mind me asking, im still trying to figure out what battery to bring on my next one.