So I finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, been meaning to try it for probably two years now and just kept putting it off. Took the FT-818 and a homebrew EFHW up to a local summit here in the Appalachians, nothing crazy high, like a 6 pointer I think, and honestly I was nervous about the whole thing more than I expected to be.

Setup went fine, got the wire up in a tree using a throw bag and everything looked good on the antenna analyzer. Started calling CQ SOTA on 40m and got... nothing for like 20 minutes. Started to wonder if the radio was even keying properly. Eventually I remembered to actually self-spot on the SOTAwatch app and within about 90 seconds I had a pileup which was kind of wild. Got my 4 contacts no problem and ended up with maybe 15 total before the battery started getting low.

The thing nobody told me is how much the terrain messes with your signal on 2m. I brought the handheld thinking id work some locals for easy contacts but the ridgeline was blocking everything to the south where most of the population is. Lesson learned I guess. Also the summit reference lookup on the SOTA database is a little confusing at first, took me a while to figure out the association/region/summit hierarchy. Anyway if anyone else has been on the fence about trying activations just do it, its way more fun than I expected even when stuff doesnt go perfectly.

Ha yeah that first time spotting yourself on SOTAwatch is kind of a revelation isn't it. You go from zero to chaos in like 60 seconds and suddenly you understand why people do this. The 2m thing is really site specific, some summits here are great for it and others are just completely blocked depending on the terrain around you. I usually try 40 or 20 SSB first to get the activator points locked in and then mess around with VHF if there's time.

One thing that helped me with the database was just downloading the CSV export of all summits in my association and keeping it offline for reference when I'm planning, cell coverage on some of these hills is not great and trying to look things up mid-hike is annoying. Also check if there's a local SOTA group or reflector for your association, ours is super active and people will actually come out and chase you if you post an alert ahead of time rather than just spotting when you're already up there.

this is really encouraging to read, ive been thinking about trying sota but wasnt sure if the FT-818 has enough juice to actually make contacts. good to know 5 watts does the job. what length wire were you using for the EFHW if you dont mind me asking, im trying to figure out what to build before i try my first one