so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house. been wanting to do this for months and kept putting it off because i was nervous about not making enough contacts or something going wrong with the antenna setup.

ended up using my FT-891 running 100w into a linked dipole i threw up between two trees, maybe 20 feet high in an inverted V config. conditions on 40m were pretty decent in the morning and i hit 10 contacts in about 25 minutes which i guess is the minimum, then kept going and ended up with like 34 total before i packed up. got a few on 20m too.

couple things im not sure about though -- when i spotted myself on the POTA app, i noticed other activators were already at my park reference (K-2847 or whatever it was). does that mean im competing with them or can multiple people activate the same park at the same time? also i logged everything in the app in the field but haven't submitted yet, how long do i actually have to do that? i keep reading different things. and one more thing, should i be calling CQ POTA specifically or just regular CQ and mention the park in my exchange?

overall it was really fun and i want to do more of these, just want to make sure im doing the logging right before i submit anything

congrats on the first one, 34 contacts is a solid activation especially for a first outing. to answer your questions -- yeah multiple activators can be at the same park at the same time, no problem at all, you each get credit for your own activation independently. its actually kind of fun when that happens, sometimes hunters will work both of you and you can chat a bit on a calling frequency if youre not busy.

for log submission i believe you have a year technically but dont wait that long, just do it when you get home while its fresh. the app makes it pretty painless. and for calling, most people do say CQ POTA or at least mention the park number in their exchange so the hunters can confirm which reference youre at. something like your callsign, 5-9, K-1234 is pretty standard. some guys get real brief about it when theyre running a pileup but when youre starting out mentioning the park reference is good habit.

linked dipole in the trees is a great setup for this by the way, you'll have no trouble at other parks with that rig

oh man i remember my first activation, i was so stressed about the 10 contact minimum that i basically panicked every time i couldnt get a response lol. you did way better than me first time out. i didnt even know about self-spotting until like my third activation which made a huge difference once i figured that out.

one thing i'd add is check the activator leaderboards and the park pages on the pota.app website, theres actually a lot of info on there about which parks have been activated a ton vs ones that are pretty rare. hunting rare parks is a whole separate rabbit hole if you want to get into that side of it too. i mostly hunt now when im home and cant get out, its a nice way to stay involved