so i finally did my first activation up on W4T/SU-051 this past saturday and man i dont even know where to start. ive been chasing for about 8 months now and kept telling myself id get out and activate eventually, well i finally did it and honestly it was a little overwhelming in the best way possible.

i brought my KX2 and a 20m end fed halfwave that i threw up between two trees, took me probably 20 minutes longer than it should have to get the antenna sorted because the trees were not cooperating and the wind kept blowing everything around. once i finally got on the air though it just clicked — spotted myself on SOTAwatch and within maybe 3 minutes i had a pileup going. nothing huge but probably 12-15 contacts in a row which felt crazy sitting on top of a mountain with a 10 watt radio.

the 4 contact minimum is deceptively easy once you get going but i was paranoid the whole time that i wasnt going to make it. anyone else remember that feeling from their first activation? also i totally forgot to log the summit reference on two of my paper contacts so im hoping i can piece it together from memory when i upload to the database. lesson learned i guess.

that feeling of the first pileup on a summit is something else isnt it. i remember my first one i was so flustered i forgot to ask for signal reports for like the first 6 contacts, just kept saying thank you 73 and moving on. took me a few activations to actually calm down and run things properly.

on the logging thing — youll be fine, the summit reference for SU-051 isnt going to change and if you remember roughly when you made the contacts you can cross reference against the chasers logs on sotadata, a lot of them upload pretty quickly and you can usually piece together who you worked. i do paper logs in the field and then transfer when i get home, ive gotten pretty good at writing the ref at the top of each page so i dont have to think about it.

KX2 and an EFHW is basically the classic SOTA kit at this point, hard to go wrong with that combo. what summit are you thinking for number two?

congrats on the first one. im still just chasing for now but reading stuff like this makes me want to actually get out and try an activation. been nervous about the whole self-spotting thing and not knowing if anyone will even hear me but sounds like the system works pretty well if you just get on and call.