so i finally did my first parks on the air activation last weekend at a state park about 40 minutes from my house, K-2345 if anyone's curious. been hunting other peoples activations for like 6 months now and kept telling myself i'd get around to doing one and i finally just did it.

brought my FT-891 and a linked dipole i built from the sotabeams kit, ran it up between two trees with some paracord. setup took way longer than i expected, probably 45 minutes just to get the antenna sorted out because one of my tie-off lines got tangled and i was fighting it in the wind. by the time i got on the air i only had about 2 hours before i had to pack up and get back.

made 12 contacts on 40m and 4 on 20m so i did get my 10 for a valid activation which was nice, but honestly i was hoping for more. a couple guys spotted me on the POTA website which definitely helped. i think my problem was i wasnt very confident calling CQ and kind of second guessed myself a lot on whether i was actually on a clear frequency before transmitting.

anyway just wanted to share, it was way more fun than just hunting from home. already planning my next one, thinking about doing a 2-fer where two park boundaries overlap near me. anyone done those before, is it just one log submission or do you have to do two separate ones?

congrats on the first activation man, 16 contacts for a first time out is honestly pretty solid especially if you were fighting antenna issues. dont sweat the frequency thing, that nervousness goes away after a couple activations i promise. just listen for 10-15 seconds, ask if the frequency is in use, and if nothing comes back you're good to go. most of the time the hunters are more patient than you think.

on the 2-fer question — yeah you submit two separate log files, one for each park reference. the POTA website handles it fine, you just make sure each QSO has the right park tagged in the log. some logging software like HAMRS or the POTA specific apps make this pretty easy to track in the field. biggest thing is confirm both park boundaries with the official reference maps before you go, ive seen people do a 2-fer only to find out they were like 50 feet outside one of the boundaries the whole time.

i did my first one a few months ago and had basically the same experience with the antenna taking forever lol. now i just practice the setup in the backyard before i go anywhere new. saves a ton of frustration when you're actually out there.