so i finally did my first activation last weekend up on a local summit here in the Appalachians, W4V/SH-001 if anyone knows it, and honestly it went way smoother than i was expecting. got my 4 contacts pretty quick on 40m, even had a guy from Ohio chase me on 20m which was cool. but i have some questions because ive been reading the rules and im a little confused about a couple things.

first, does the summit reference have to be in the callsign area you're licensed in? like if i drove to a summit in a different state would i just use that summit's reference and alert on SOTAwatch? i think the answer is yes but i want to make sure before i plan a trip. also my signal reports were all over the place, some guys said i was 59 but a few said they could barely hear me. i was running about 10 watts into a linked dipole i threw up in a nearby tree, wind was picking up around the time i was operating so maybe that was it. also do chasers generally prefer CW or phone, because i noticed my spots got more responses once i switched to 14.285 from 40m.

anyway it was a great experience and already looking at my next summit, probably something with a harder hike just to make it more interesting

welcome to the SOTA addiction, haha, fair warning it does not get easier to resist once you do a few. to answer your question yeah the summit reference is tied to the physical location not your license address, so if you drive to a W5 or W3 summit you just use that reference and alert accordingly on SOTAwatch3 before you go up. the association and region are baked into the reference code itself so it all works out. one thing i'd add is make sure you self spot during the activation too if you can, even just a simple spot from your phone using the SOTA Spotter app really helps the chasers find you especially if you QSY between bands.

as for CW vs phone, honestly depends on conditions and who's awake but in my experience the CW pileups can be way more productive once you get comfortable with it. i know not everyone is there yet and 4 contacts on phone is totally valid, just saying if you ever want to chase summit to summit contacts CW opens up a lot more options. sounds like a solid first activation though, 20m working into Ohio is a good sign your dipole was doing its job.

im also pretty new to this and just did my second activation last month so take this with a grain of salt but the wind absolutely wrecks your signal if the antenna is moving around a lot. i had the same issue on a ridge in W6 and my reports went from decent to terrible when the gusts picked up. some folks use a squid pole to get the dipole up more stable instead of relying on trees, might be worth trying if you're going back to that summit or somewhere with open terrain.