so i finally did my first real POTA activation yesterday at a state park about 45 minutes from me. been planning this for like two months and of course everything that could go wrong kind of did. packed the KX2 and a 20m EFHW wire and my little folding table and drove out there, found a decent spot near a picnic area, got set up in maybe 20 minutes which im pretty proud of actually.

anyway the problem was i forgot the counterpoise wire at home. just... left it on my desk. so i was running the EFHW with basically nothing on the other end and the SWR was all over the place, KX2 was tuning it but i could tell something was off. still managed to pull 12 contacts in about an hour and a half so it counts as an activation. most of the signals i was hearing were way stronger than what i was putting out i think.

next time im making a checklist. also the folding table legs kept sinking into the soft ground which was annoying. anyone else have a disaster first activation that still worked out

haha yeah my first one i drove 40 minutes to the park and realized my coax was still at home. ended up just doing it with the antenna basically directly on the rig with a short jumper i had in the bag. it was ugly but 10 contacts is 10 contacts. the checklist thing is real, i laminated mine now and its in the go bag permanently.

also for the table legs thing, i just bring a couple of those small cutting boards from the dollar store, slip em under the legs and it helps a lot on soft ground. picked that up from someone on the pota facebook group.

12 contacts without a counterpoise is actually pretty solid, the EFHW can be kinda forgiving depending on how you string it up. i run mine without sometimes when im lazy and it usually still tunes. congrats on the activation tho, first one is always a little chaotic