so i finally did my first activation last weekend, went up W4T/SU-001 which isnt the hardest summit but it was about a 4 mile hike in and i was carrying way too much radio gear like always. ended up using my FT-818 with a linked dipole i built from a kit and just threw it up in a tree with a bit of paracord, worked fine.

made 11 QSOs on 40m and a few on 20m, got my 4 points which i guess qualifies it, but im reading conflicting stuff about the activation zone. like the rules say you have to be within 25 vertical meters of the true summit but some summits have these huge flat tops and i wasnt sure exactly where i was. does it matter a ton as long as youre clearly on the summit itself? i didnt want to be that guy who gets dinged for being 30m off or whatever.

also noticed a few guys spotted me on SOTAwatch pretty fast after i self-spotted via the app, within like 2 minutes i had a pileup which was kind of overwhelming for someone who just got their general last year. overall though it was a blast and im definitely going back out. any tips for working faster or managing a small pileup would be appreciated, i was fumbling around trying to log and key at the same time

congrats on the first activation, 11 QSOs on your first time out is solid especially if you were dealing with nerves and a pileup on top of it. on the activation zone question, honestly for most summits it really isnt something to stress over too much. if you're clearly on or very near the summit you're fine. the 25 meter vertical rule is more there to stop people from setting up at the trailhead and claiming the summit, it comes up more on these broad ridgeline summits where someone might try to activate from like half a mile away horizontally. if you hiked to the top youre good.

for managing pileups, one thing that helped me a lot early on was just slowing down and taking control of the frequency instead of letting the pile run you. say who youre listening for, like say last two letters or just say QRZ SOTA and make them wait a second. also logging on paper first and transferring later saves a lot of brain cycles when youre out there, i used to try to do everything on my phone and it was a mess. the SOTA Spotter app is great but sometimes the self-spot takes a second depending on cell coverage so its worth texting an alert the day before so the chasers already know youre coming

man im jealous, ive been wanting to do SU-001 for a while. did you take the trail from the north side or come up the ridge? i heard the ridge approach is shorter but steeper and i dont know if my knees would survive it with a pack lol

anyway yeah the activation zone thing tripped me up too on my second or third activation, i asked on the reflector and basically got the same answer, if youre on the mountain and made a reasonable effort to get to the top youre not gonna get flagged. the database trustees are pretty reasonable about it from what ive seen