so i finally did my first summits on the air activation saturday, been putting it off for like a year because i kept thinking id need a ton of gear or some crazy antenna setup. ended up just throwing my kx2 in a small pack with a 9:1 unun and about 35 feet of wire up in a tree and made 12 contacts in maybe 45 minutes. one of the chasers was in germany which i was not expecting at all on 20 meters with maybe 10 watts. the hike up was the hardest part honestly, the radio stuff was almost relaxing once i got set up. already looking at which summit to do next

nice work man, that germany contact on qrp is always a good feeling. i do a lot of pota too and honestly the wire antenna thing is so underrated, people show up with giant masts and all this stuff and im just like... a random wire in a tree does fine most days. what summit did you do if you dont mind me asking

I had almost the exact same experience on my first activation. Spent weeks overthinking the antenna situation and then just used a linked dipole I threw together the night before and it worked great. The chasers are really helpful too, like they actually want you to succeed so they'll dig your signal out even when its rough. Definitely gets addictive, I think ive done 14 activations since March.