so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 mins from my house, K-4892 if anyone knows it. I was honestly pretty nervous going in because ive read so many posts about people struggling to get their 10 contacts and all that. brought my KX3 and a 40m EFHW strung up between two trees, nothing fancy.

ended up with 23 QSOs in about an hour and a half which i was pretty happy with for a first time out. mostly 40m SSB but i did manage a few on 20m toward the end when 40 started getting a little long for stateside stuff. a couple of guys actually spotted me on the POTA app which helped a ton, suddenly had a small pileup which was fun to deal with.

anyway my questions are kind of basic. first, do i need to log the park reference in every single log entry or just note it somewhere on the submission? and second, is there a good way to know ahead of time if a park is actually accessible and has decent tree cover for a wire antenna? i looked at the park page on the POTA website but it didnt have much info beyond the basic stuff. also wondering if SSB is still the most common mode out there for activators or if FT8 has kind of taken over for hunters trying to rack up park counts

congrats on the first one, 23 contacts is a solid debut honestly. for the logging question, yeah the park reference goes on every QSO in your ADIF file, thats how the system matches everything up on the backend. when you upload the log it needs to see the park reference associated with each contact not just as a header. most logging software like HAMRS or even just a spreadsheet export handles that automatically if you set it up right at the start of the activation.

for figuring out if a park has trees and access, honestly the best resource ive found is just looking up the park on google satellite view before you go. you can usually tell pretty quickly if its mostly open fields or has wooded areas. some parks also have their own websites with trail maps and that kind of thing. theres also a POTA activators facebook group where people sometimes post notes about specific parks, its worth searching the park name in there before you go.

as for SSB vs FT8, both are very active. SSB still feels like the heart of POTA to me, theres something about actually talking to people in a park that fits the whole spirit of it. but FT8 hunters are definitely out there and it can help you rack up contacts fast especially if propagation is rough. i usually start SSB and if things are slow i might switch over just to get the activation confirmed.

im also pretty new to this, only done three activations so far, but i can say the HAMRS app made the logging thing pretty painless once i figured out how to set the park reference before i started logging. messed it up on my second activation and had to manually edit the ADIF file afterward which was kind of a pain but not the end of the world.

one thing i didnt expect is how much hunters appreciate it when you call CQ POTA and keep it slow and clear, especially if youre on a frequency that has some noise. had one guy thank me over the air for being patient which was a nice moment. people in this hobby are generally really cool