so ive been licensed about 8 months now (General) and finally decided to stop just watching other people do POTA activations on youtube and actually go do one myself. picked out a state park about 45 minutes from me, K-2847 i think, and im planning to head out saturday morning.

my question is kind of embarrassing but here goes — do i need to pre-register the activation somewhere or just show up and operate? i saw something on the pota.app website about logging activations but it wasnt super clear to me whether thats something you do beforehand or just when you upload your log afterward. also not sure if i need to notify the park or get some kind of permit, or if people just set up at a picnic table and start operating without talking to anyone official.

planning to bring my ft-891 and a end fed wire antenna, run it up a tree if i can find a good branch. probably just 40m and maybe some 20m if propagation cooperates. any tips from people who have actually done this would be really appreciated, im kind of nervous about the whole thing honestly

don't stress about it, the pre-registration thing is totally optional — some people do it so hunters know to look for them on the spots page, but plenty of folks just show up and then spot themselves manually once they're set up and on the air. the pota.app has a self-spotting feature right in the app which is super handy if you have cell service at the park.

the permit question is more park-specific and honestly most people just set up at a picnic table or in the parking lot and nobody says anything. that said a few state parks do technically require you to have something — usually just a day use pass you'd buy at the entrance anyway. i'd just call the park office quick and ask if amateur radio operation is allowed, most rangers are pretty chill about it and some have never even been asked before. better than getting there and having someone ask you to leave.

for your first one i'd just focus on getting 10 contacts which is what you need to count as a valid activation. 40m SSB is probably your best bet in the morning, the band should be decent. good luck, the first one feels a little chaotic but once you make that first contact you'll relax right away.

yeah what he said about the 10 contacts thing. also just want to add — spot yourself early even if you're not quite ready, like as soon as you know your frequency is clear. hunters are watching the spots constantly and they'll start calling you almost immediately once you show up. my first activation i waited too long to spot myself and ended up calling CQ for like 10 minutes before anyone found me, felt like forever lol.

end fed on 40 should work great, i use almost the exact same setup. have fun with it