So ive been hunting parks for about three months now and finally decided to stop being a wimp and do my first activation at a state park about 20 minutes from my house, K-2945 for anyone curious. Planning to run my KX2 with a 40m EFHW thrown up in a tree, should have decent elevation based on what I remember from hiking there last fall.

My main worry is just not making enough contacts — I know you only need 10 for a valid activation but what if nobody hears me or I cant figure out where to spot myself. I set up an account on pota.app last week and did a test spot from home just to make sure it worked. Also not sure whether to start on 40 or try 20 first, ill probably get there around 10am local time so propagation should be decent on both I think.

Any tips from folks whove done a bunch of these would be great. Not nervous exactly just... you know how it is before you do something new.

You're gonna do fine, seriously. The POTA community is really good about hunting spotted activators especially on weekends. Just get your spot up as soon as you can — even before you're fully set up, throw a spot out saying you'll be QRV in a few minutes, people will start tuning in.

For time of day, 40 is usually pretty solid at 10am depending on where you are but 20 can be even better for getting hunters from further out. I usually start on 40, work a quick pileup, then QSY up to 20 and announce it on the spot. Gets you contacts from two bands and people seem to appreciate it. The 10 contact minimum sounds stressful but honestly once you're spotted you'll probably blow past that in the first 15 minutes. Good luck tomorrow, post back and let us know how it went.

oh also dont forget to log the park reference number in your actual log not just the app — i forgot to do that my first two activations and had to go back and fix everything manually when i uploaded. small thing but annoying. have fun out there