so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 mins from my house. ive been listening to other people do these for months on the clusters and youtube and kept putting it off because i was nervous about operating portable and not having my shack setup to fall back on. anyway i just went for it.

brought my FT-891 and a random wire up in a tree, ran about 25 watts and honestly the pile wasnt huge but i got my 10 contacts in maybe 35 minutes which felt pretty good for a first time. had one guy who kept calling over everyone else and it was hard to pull calls out but i managed. logged on paper and transferred to ADIF later which was kind of a pain.

my questions — is there a faster way to do the logging in the field? i saw someone mention using an app but i dont know which ones people actually use. also when i uploaded to the POTA website it said the park reference was pending, is that normal or did i do something wrong with the K-number? i used the one from the POTA.app website so i think it was right but now im second guessing myself.

also for anyone whos done a bunch of these — is 40m usually the go-to band or should i have been trying 20m too? i stuck to 40 the whole time because i know it pretty well.

congrats on the first one, that nervousness before the first activation is totally real and then you do it and realize it wasnt that scary at all. pending status on the park reference is completely normal, it usually clears within a day or two once the logs get processed. as long as you used the right K- number from the website youre fine, dont stress about it.

for logging i use HAMRS on my phone and it syncs up pretty well with the POTA upload format. some people swear by logging apps on a tablet but honestly even paper is fine if youre comfortable with it, the ADIF transfer is annoying but you only do it once per activation. theres also a guy in our local club who just uses a spreadsheet template he made, whatever works.

on the band question — definitely worth trying 20m especially if youre activating on a weekend. 40 is great in the morning and evening but 20 can get you contacts from way further out and sometimes you get spotted and a small pile builds up faster. i usually start on 40 to get my 10 and then flip to 20 to see whats happening. some activators will work both simultaneously if they have the gear for it but thats a whole other thing.

yeah the pending thing threw me off my first time too lol. it goes away. and nice work on getting the 10, i remember my first activation i was so stressed i almost packed up at 8 contacts and drove home but stuck it out.

HAMRS is what most people in the POTA groups online seem to use, its pretty straightforward. just make sure you put the park reference in before you start logging or it doesnt attach to the contacts automatically and then you have to go fix it which is annoying.