so ive been hunting POTA for a few months now and finally decided i want to do my first activation at a state park thats about 20 minutes from my house. its listed as K-4839 i think, maybe K-4841, i always mix those two up. anyway the park is pretty small, just a day use area with a picnic shelter and a pond basically.

my plan is to bring my KX3 and a 40m EFHW strung up between two trees if i can find a good enough setup. maybe throw a 20m counterpoise or something, im still fuzzy on that part. i know i need 10 QSOs to count as an activated and ive heard SSB is faster for getting contacts but i mostly do CW so im thinking ill try CW first and switch if it gets slow.

is there anything i totally missed or that catches people off guard the first time? also do i need to spot myself on the pota.app or does someone usually do that for me if i post on the clusters? i dont really want to fumble with my phone and the radio at the same time

CW was absolutely the right call for your first activation honestly, you'll get to 10 contacts way faster than you think especially if you self-spot. and yeah you do need to spot yourself, nobody's going to do it for you unless you get lucky and a hunter stumbles across you on a sweep. just download the POTA app before you go and do a test spot from your driveway so you're not fumbling with it in the field. takes like 30 seconds once you know where everything is.

the EFHW should work fine for 40m, that band is usually your bread and butter for activations especially in the afternoon. if 40 is dead try 20 but honestly at a state park 20 minutes from home you'll probably have a pileup within 5 minutes of spotting. hunters are always watching. one thing i wish someone had told me before my first one -- bring more water than you think you need and check if the park has any rules about antennas or stakes in the ground, some of them get weird about it.

i just did my third activation last weekend so im basically still a newbie at this too lol. the self-spotting thing tripped me up my first time, i kept waiting for contacts that never came because i hadnt spotted yet. once i figured that out the pileup started almost immediately which was kind of overwhelming actually. good luck, its a lot of fun once you get going