so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, took the ft-818 and a end fed half wave up to a local hill and just threw the wire over a tree branch. wasnt expecting much but managed to get like 14 contacts in maybe 45 minutes which i guess is enough to count. signal reports were all over the place but whatever, people could hear me so thats good enough for a first time

the hard part was getting the antenna situated, the tree i wanted to use had all these low branches and i ended up with the wire at kind of a weird angle but it still loaded up fine on 20m. brought way too much stuff in my pack too, definitely leaving the spare battery home next time since the 818 barely touched the internal one

anyone else do a lot of local summits? curious what antennas people are running for lightweight stuff

yeah end feds are pretty much the go-to for that kind of thing, i use a 49:1 unun with about 53 feet of wire and it just works. throw it in a stuff sack and it weighs nothing. for really quick activations i dont even bother with a mast, just find a good branch like you did

14 contacts on your first one is solid, some people struggle to get the required 4 so you did fine. wait til you try a summit with a big pileup, that gets fun real quick

i keep meaning to try SOTA but havent pulled the trigger yet. did you use the spotting network or just call CQ cold? i always wonder how long it takes to get contacts if nobody knows youre there