so i finally did my first activation last weekend, took about 2 hours to hike up to W4T/SU-001 and honestly the whole thing was way more fun than i expected. i was running a KX2 with a linked dipole that i threw together based on a youtube video and it actually worked, got my 4 contacts pretty quick on 40m then switched to 20 and worked a few more including someone in europe which kinda blew my mind considering im running like 10 watts from a summit.

anyway a couple things i wasnt sure about. first, do i need to self-spot or will chasers find me if i alert ahead of time? i did put an alert on SOTAwatch but im not sure i did it right because the time zone thing confused me. second, the summit reference i used -- how do i know if its actually valid and in the database? i looked it up on the SOTA mapping page but wasnt totally sure i was reading it right. and honestly just wondering if most people use SSB or CW for this because i felt like 40m SSB was getting crowded and someone suggested i try CW but im still pretty slow at it.

congrats on your first one, that feeling when you work europe QRP from a summit never really gets old honestly. for the spotting question -- alerting ahead of time definitely helps chasers plan for you, but you still want to self-spot once youre actually on frequency and ready. you can use the SOTAwatch app or if you have cell signal just do it through the website. a lot of activators also text someone at home to spot them if their data is spotty up top, which happens more than youd think.

for the summit reference just search it on sotadata.org.uk and if it comes up with a valid reference number and region then youre good. if you activated the wrong peak by accident it happens to everyone at least once, dont sweat it too much just double check next time with the topo maps on the SOTA mapping page and make sure your GPS coords are actually on or close to the summit boundary.

on the CW thing -- honestly even at 5wpm youll get contacts, chasers are super patient with slow code especially from a portable station. SSB works fine too, just takes a bit more digging through the noise sometimes at QRP levels. do whatever keeps it fun for you right now.

im pretty new to this too but i started chasing before i activated and one thing i noticed is that the spots on SOTAwatch move really fast, like sometimes an activator is only on a frequency for 10-15 minutes before they move or lose signal so if youre self spotting it really does make a difference for getting pileups. also the time zone on SOTAwatch tripped me up too, i think it defaults to UTC so just make sure your alert is in the right zone or chasers show up looking for you an hour off lol. looking forward to trying my own activation soon