so i finally did my first ever activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, K-4782 if anyone knows it. been a ham for about 8 months now and kept seeing people talk about POTA on here and finally just decided to go do it instead of reading about it forever.

brought my ft-891 and a random wire antenna i threw up in a tree, ran about 35 feet of it up as high as i could get it. conditions werent amazing but i managed to get 12 contacts in about an hour and a half which i guess counts as an activation? i was pretty nervous the first few times i called CQ POTA and honestly wasnt sure anyone would answer but they did pretty quickly once i spotted myself on the POTA website.

couple things im confused about though - does every contact have to be on a different band or can i log multiple contacts with the same person if i work them on different bands? also i noticed some activators post their frequency to the spotting page before they even start, is that the normal thing to do or do you spot yourself after youre already on the air? and one more thing, do park boundaries actually matter like if i set up in the parking lot right at the edge is that ok or do i technically need to be inside the boundary proper?

anyway it was a really good time, way more fun than sitting at home calling CQ on 40m and getting nothing back lol

congrats on the first activation, 12 contacts is totally valid and honestly a solid number for a first time out especially if conditions weren't cooperating. to answer your questions - yes you can work the same person on multiple bands and each one counts as a separate QSO in your log, that's actually a thing hunters do on purpose to rack up points, it's called a P2P when you're both activating different parks but even regular hunters do the multi-band thing.

for spotting, most people self-spot right when they get set up and on frequency, before they even start calling CQ. the hunters are watching the spots page constantly and they'll come running pretty fast once they see you pop up. some folks pre-spot like 10-15 minutes out to give people a heads up but you dont have to do that, just spot yourself when you're ready to go.

the boundary question is a good one and it kind of depends on the park. the official rule is you need to be within the park boundary, parking lots usually count if they're owned/managed by the park itself. if you're unsure just look at the park reference page on the POTA website, sometimes the notes section has info about the specific park layout. when in doubt set up a little further in and you're fine.

im also pretty new to POTA (did my third activation two weeks ago) and the spotting thing confused me too at first. what helped me was just downloading the POTA app on my phone, you can self-spot right from there without having to mess with the website on a browser while you're also trying to run a pileup or whatever. made things a lot easier when my hands were already full with the radio and logging.

also if you havent looked at the activator resources on the POTA website theres some good stuff in there, though honestly just doing it like you did is probably the best way to learn. i spent way too long reading and not enough time just going out and doing it