so i finally dragged myself up a summit for the first time, been meaning to do SOTA for like two years and just never got around to it. picked a relatively easy one, W6 something, maybe 45 minute hike. threw the KX2 in my pack with a 40m end fed and just a small lipo, figured id see what happened.

ended up getting 12 contacts in maybe 20 minutes once i got the antenna sorted. the antenna was the annoying part, i was trying to hang it off a branch and the branch kept bouncing in the wind and messing with my SWR. eventually just propped my trekking pole up and ran it slanted and that worked way better. made contacts all over the west coast and even one guy in colorado which felt pretty good for 5 watts.

the whole summit to summit thing is really cool, got one of those too with someone activating a peak in utah. anyway yeah if anyone is on the fence about doing it just go, its way more fun than sitting in the shack honestly

yeah the antenna situation is always the adventure isnt it. i've done probably 30 activations now and i still spend like 10 minutes fussing with wire placement every single time. trekking pole as a mast is the move, i use two of them lashed together sometimes if i need a bit more height for the inverted v. congrats on the S2S too, those are always satisfying to log

this is making me want to finally do my first one. been licensed for 8 months and i keep reading about POTA and SOTA but havent pulled the trigger. do you need anything special to log the contacts or just the normal stuff? also what lipo were you running, trying to figure out what battery to get