so i finally did my first activation last weekend, went up to a local summit that's only about a mile hike from the trailhead, nothing too crazy. brought my ft-818 and a wire dipole i threw together the night before, ran it up between two hiking poles which worked surprisingly well actually.

managed to get 4 contacts on 20m SSB which i know is the minimum for a valid activation so that was a relief. but i have some questions because im still figuring out the whole SOTA thing. first, when people say theyre chasing you, do they already know youre going to be there or do they just happen to find you? i spotted myself on the SOTAwatch app but im not sure if anyone actually saw it before i called CQ. second, the summit reference for the one i did — W6/NC-something i think — do i need to log that exact reference or is the general area ok? just want to make sure i do it right when i submit the log. also my signal was getting eaten alive every time the wind picked up and was shaking the antenna, is that normal or did i do something wrong with the setup

congrats on the first activation, that's awesome. to answer your questions: yes, most chasers are actively watching SOTAwatch and the RBNhole spot aggregator, so when you self-spot they'll often come looking for you pretty quickly. some will also spot you if they hear you on the air even if you didn't self-spot first, which is nice. the summit reference matters — you need the exact one, like W6/NC-042 or whatever it is, because that's how the points get assigned and how chasers log it on their end. if you're not sure which one you were on, just look it up on the summits database at sotadata.org.uk before you submit, it's pretty easy to search by location. as for the antenna shaking around in the wind, yeah that can definitely cause some signal variation but 4 contacts on a dipole between hiking poles is solid for a first time out, dont overthink it. try to get the feedpoint a bit more stable next time if you can, sometimes a short piece of cord to a stake in the ground helps keep it from swinging around too much.

the SOTAwatch spotting thing is really the key to getting more than just 4 contacts imo. once i started alerting a day or two ahead of time and then spotting myself right when i got on the air i started getting pileups pretty fast, like within a minute or two of calling CQ. people are just sitting there waiting. also dont forget you can work other modes too if ssb is slow, a lot of activators carry a tiny cw setup and the chasers on cw are super active. i only got into cw last year but it's made activations way more fun, especially when band conditions aren't great.