so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 2 mile hike which seemed easy enough but man i did not account for how much gear i was carrying. ended up with my kx2, a 40m EFHW, some water, food, battery pack and by the time i got to the top my legs were done. set up took forever because the wind was insane and i kept dropping the feedpoint connector in the rocks.

anyway made my 4 contacts to qualify which i was happy about but the whole thing took like 3 hours when i thought it would be 2. also forgot my kx2 was still set to low power from the last time i used it indoors, was running like 1 watt for the first 20 minutes and wondering why nobody could hear me. classic.

anyone else have a disaster first activation story or is it just me

haha yeah my first POTA activation i drove an hour to the park and realized i left my coax at home. had to just use a mag loop i had in the back seat that i barely know how to tune. still got 10 contacts somehow so it counts but yeah not my finest moment. you get better at the packing thing after a while, i basically have a dedicated activation bag now that stays packed so i dont forget stuff.

the wind thing is real, i use a small bungee cord now to hold the feedpoint to a trekking pole and it helps a lot. also ran 1 watt for half an activation before too so dont feel bad lol