so i finally did my first summit activation saturday, been putting it off for like a year because i kept convincing myself i needed more gear or a better antenna setup or whatever. ended up just throwing my ft-818 and a random wire in a bag and driving up to a local peak that only needed like a 2 mile hike. made 9 contacts on 20m SSB which i know isnt a lot but for a first time out i was pretty happy with it. the wire just draped over a tree and ran back to the radio on my lap worked way better than i thought it would. only issue was the battery dying faster than expected, i had a little 5ah lipo and it barely lasted the session, prob should have brought a spare. anyway if anyones been on the fence about trying SOTA just do it, you dont need perfect gear

9 contacts on your first activation is solid man, i think i only got like 6 on mine and i was super relieved just to qualify. the battery thing is real though, i switched to a bigger capacity pack after my second time out and it made a huge difference. also 20m was probably working in your favor, have you tried any CW? even slow CW pileups on a summit are something else

yeah same boat here i kept overthinking the antenna situation forever. ended up that a simple linked dipole just hanging from a trekking pole got me more contacts than i expected. whats your next summit gonna be?