so ive been hunting parks for about two months now and finally decided to just go out and do my own activation. heading to a state forest nearby, i think its K-4872 but ill double check on the pota.app before i leave. planning to run my KX2 with a random wire up in a tree and hopefully get at least 10 contacts to make it count.

im a little nervous about the logging part honestly. ive been using HAMRS on my phone for hunting but activating feels different, like i have to be more on top of things. also not sure if i should self-spot or wait for someone to spot me. any tips from people whove done this before would be really appreciated. or even just general stuff i dont want to forget

oh man you're gonna have a blast, first activation is so fun. few things i wish someone told me -- bring way more battery than you think you need, especially if its cold out. also self-spotting is totally fine, actually most activators do it. just pull up pota.app on your phone, go to activator tools and drop your spot with your frequency and mode. hunters are watching those spots constantly so you'll start getting calls pretty quick usually.

HAMRS works fine for activating too by the way, just switch it to activator mode. make sure you have the park reference in there before you start logging. and dont stress too much about the 10 contact minimum, if youre in a decent location on 40m during the day you'll blow past that. good luck and post how it goes

yeah what he said about the self spot. also -- and this tripped me up my first time -- make sure your callsign is listed as the activator on pota.app before you go out, not just as a hunter account. i think you have to go into your profile settings or something. i drove 45 mins to my park and realized i had no idea how to log it properly lol. ended up fine but was stressful. also write down the park number on paper just in case your phone dies or you lose signal at the park