so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, took my ft-818 and a random wire up to a local hill about 1800ft, nothing crazy. spent like an hour and a half hiking up which i was NOT prepared for physically lol. anyway got set up and made 12 contacts in maybe 20 minutes, couple of them were S2S which was cool. the wire threw me off a bit because i couldnt get a good swr on 40m but 20 worked fine so i just went with that. honestly the whole experience was just... really different from sitting in the shack. something about making a contact when youre standing on a rock with the wind in your face just hits different. gonna try a POTA one next month, probably easier on the knees

yeah the first one always gets you, i remember mine i was so worried about the radio i forgot to bring enough water. S2S contacts are addicting once you start chasing them. for the 40m swr thing it might just be your counterpoise length, i had the same issue and adding a few feet sorted it right out. welcome to the addiction

POTA is definitely more chill on the legs ha. I do both but honestly some of these SOTA summits are just brutal and im not as young as I used to be. the radio part is easy its the getting there thats the workout. what radio you running for POTA?