so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, took forever to pick a summit because i kept second guessing the difficulty rating and whether my legs could handle it with a full pack. ended up doing a pretty easy one just to get the feel for it. brought my ft-818 and a linked dipole i built from some youtube video and honestly the whole setup worked way better than i expected

the bad part was i forgot to check the alerts page so literally nobody was expecting me and i had to call CQ for like 20 minutes before i got my first contact. felt like forever on a cold hillside. eventually got my 4 QSOs and called it but man i need to figure out that whole self spotting thing before next time

yeah the self spotting thing is kind of essential honestly, once you start using SOTAwatch and just throw your spot up there the pile starts pretty quick usually. i use the goTenna or just cell service if i have any. congrats on the first one though, 4 contacts counts and thats what matters

i did the same thing on my first one haha just showed up with no alert posted and sat there wondering why nobody was answering. also the aprs2sota thing is worth looking into if you have an aprs radio, it can auto spot you when you hit the summit which is pretty slick