so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, took the KX2 and a end-fed out to a state forest about 45 minutes from home. honestly had no idea what to expect because most of the info i found online was either really old or about SOTA which is a bit different obviously.

managed to get 12 contacts in about an hour and a half on 40m, conditions werent great but people were patient with me which was nice. i spotted myself on the WWFF spotter page before going out and that definitely helped get some callers.

my questions are -- do the contacts need to be on a specific mode or band, i was just doing SSB but wasnt sure if theres a requirement. also the reference i activated was KFF-something, do i need to register that reference somewhere or is it already in the system from a previous activation. and do i submit the log to wwff directly or through some other site, i uploaded to QRZ and LOTW already but wasnt sure about the wwff specific part.

sorry if these are dumb questions, the website has a lot of info but its a little overwhelming when youre just starting out with this

congrats on the first one, 12 contacts is totally respectable especially on 40m when conditions are being difficult. to answer your questions -- no theres no mode or band requirement for WWFF, you can work SSB CW FT8 whatever, they all count. some chasers actually prefer CW or digital but SSB is perfectly fine and honestly easier when youre also trying to manage being in the field.

for the reference, if its already in the KFF database you dont need to do anything to register it, those references are managed by the WWFF national coordinator for the US which is ARRL affiliated i think. you can look up any KFF reference on the WWFF logger or parks on the air website and see if its already listed. if for some reason your forest isnt in there yet thats a whole different process but most state forests already have references.

log submission goes through the WWFF logger at wwff.co -- you basically create an account if you havent, and upload your ADIF there. it doesnt replace LOTW or anything, its its own separate database for tracking activations and chaser credits. once its in the system the people who chased you will get credit automatically if they also log there.

yeah what he said about the logger is right. i did my first activation a few months ago and the wwff.co site felt confusing at first but once you do the upload once its pretty straightforward. one thing i'll add -- make sure your ADIF has the right reference number in it, i think theres a field called WWFF_REF or something like that, some logging software puts it in automatically if you set it up right but i had to manually add it the first time using ADIF master or whatever its called.

also dont stress too much about only getting 12, i think the minimum for a valid activation is 44 contacts but you still get credit in the log for the ones you did make, and some people just do partial activations for fun anyway. next time you go back to the same reference those contacts add up over multiple visits i believe.