so i finally did my first activation last weekend, been chasing for about 6 months and figured it was time to stop watching from the sidelines. picked W4C/CM-073 mostly because its only like a 2 mile hike and i didnt want to bite off more than i could chew for my first time out

brought the KX2 with a 49:1 unun and maybe 35ft of wire thrown up into a tree, worked better than i expected honestly. got my 4 contacts pretty quick once i spotted myself on SOTAwatch and the pile got surprisingly lively for a random tuesday morning. ended up with 11 QSOs total including a S2S with some guy in Colorado which felt pretty cool

my questions are kind of all over the place -- first, is there a standard way people handle the log upload? i used SOTA CSV logger on my phone but when i went to upload it got confused about some of the times, think i had a couple entries where i forgot to note UTC vs local. also wondering if there's any unwritten etiquette about how long you stay on a summit before moving frequencies, felt weird just disappearing after i cleared the pile. and last thing, does the activation zone thing vary by summit or is it always the 25m vertical rule? someone in another group told me it depends on the summit reference but i couldnt find a clear answer on the SOTA database

congrats on the first one, S2S on your activation debut is a nice way to start. the log thing trips a lot of people up early on -- easiest fix going forward is just keep everything in UTC from the start, i know its annoying but once it becomes habit you stop thinking about it. for fixing existing entries the reflector has some posts about manually editing the CSV before upload, shouldnt be too hard if youre comfortable with a spreadsheet

the activation zone question -- its always 25 meters vertical below the summit, thats a global rule and doesnt change by reference. what MIGHT vary is how easy it is to actually find a spot within the AZ that works for an antenna. some summits youre basically on a knife edge and every tree is on a 45 degree slope, others you get a nice flat shoulder with great takeoff. the database doesnt really tell you that part, thats what trip reports on sotl.as are good for

as for frequency etiquette, i usually give a final CQ saying something like "QRT after this" so chasers know to get in quick if they want the contact. most experienced chasers understand you might only be up there an hour, nobody expects you to camp out all day

im still pretty new to chasing but ive been reading everything i can on the reflector and i think the time zone thing is something almost everyone messes up at least once lol. i actually held off on my first activation for weeks because i was paranoid about the log submission screwing up my points

that S2S sounds awesome though, i havent managed to work one yet from the chase side, seems like you have to be watching SOTAwatch constantly to catch them before the pile gets too big