so i finally did my first ever POTA activation yesterday at a state forest about 45 min from me. packed up the ft-891 and my random wire with a 9:1 unun, figured id be set up and making contacts within like 20 minutes. yeah that did not happen lol

first the ground was way too rocky to get my stakes in for the antenna, so i ended up just draping the wire over some branches which worked okay i guess. then i realized i forgot the coax adapter i needed so i had to dig through my bag for like 10 minutes to find the backup one i threw in last minute. by the time i was actually on the air it was almost noon and the bands were kind of rough on 40m. managed to squeeze out 11 contacts on 20m before my battery started getting low, so it counts as an activation but barely. still pretty fun though, theres something about just sitting on a rock in the woods making contacts that feels different than operating from home

11 contacts totally counts, anything over 10 is an activation. honestly your first one is always kind of a mess, mine i forgot to bring a chair and sat on a wet log for 3 hours. you learn what you actually need real fast when youre out there without your shack. the rocky ground antenna thing is a real problem, ive started carrying paracord and just tossing a line over branches for a dipole. way less fussing around with stakes

what battery were you running? i just switched to a 20ah lifepo4 and it lasts way longer than i expected even with the 891 at 100w. might be worth it if youre gonna do more of these