So i finally did my first ever parks on the air activation last weekend at a state park about 40 minutes from home. Ive been licensed for almost two years but just kept putting it off because honestly the whole thing seemed complicated to set up and i wasnt sure id even make 10 contacts which is the minimum you need to count the activation.

Ended up using my KX2 with a random wire antenna i threw up between two trees, ran it on battery the whole time. Took me maybe 20 minutes to get everything up and running which was longer than i wanted but whatever. I spotted myself on the POTA app once i was ready and within like 5 minutes i had a small pileup going which was kind of overwhelming honestly. Made 23 contacts in about an hour and a half on 40m, tried 20m for a bit but conditions werent great that afternoon.

Biggest thing i learned is that you really do need to upload your log the same day or at least pretty quickly — i forgot to mention the park reference number in my log notes at first and had to go back and fix things. Also learned that hunters really appreciate when you ID frequently and give signal reports, some of them are trying to get park credits and they want to make sure the contact counts.

Anyone else do their first activation recently? Curious what parks people are targeting around the midwest if anyone wants to share.

Congrats on the first one, that feeling when the pileup starts is something else right? I remember my first activation i was so flustered i forgot to log like 4 contacts and had to piece them together from memory afterwards. Now i use a voice keyer for my CQ call and it makes a huge difference, lets me actually focus on writing down calls instead of talking constantly.

One thing that helped me a lot early on was activating less popular parks first — like not the big well-known ones — because you get a steadier slower rate of callers which is way easier to manage when youre still getting the hang of things. The reference number thing you mentioned is super important too, some people forget that and their log gets rejected or doesnt match up right. ADIF files from most logging apps will handle it if you set the park reference in the right field before you export.

nice work, 23 contacts for a first time out is pretty solid. i did my first one earlier this year and only got 12 which still counted but felt like i was barely scraping by the whole time. whats the KX2 like for portable ops? ive been eyeing one for a while but havent pulled the trigger yet, mostly been using a full size rig with a battery in a backpack which is obviously kind of ridiculous