so i finally dragged myself up W4C/CM-001 yesterday with the KX2 and a end-fed halfwave strung up between two trees and honestly it went way better than i expected. made 12 contacts in about 45 minutes which i know isnt a lot but for my first time out i was pretty happy with it. the hardest part was honestly just getting the antenna up, kept tangling the wire on the way up the trail and had to stop like three times to untangle everything. one tip somebody gave me before i went was to loosely coil the wire and put it in a mesh bag and yeah that helped a lot once i figured out the right technique.

anyway if anyones been on the fence about doing a SOTA activation just go do it. its way more fun than sitting in the shack and the signal reports i got were surprisingly good considering i was running 10 watts into a wire in the middle of nowhere. already looking at my next summit on the list.

congrats on the first one, its kind of addictive right. i started doing POTA last spring and now i cant go hiking without thinking about whether the park is on the list lol. the wire tangling thing is real, i wound up just buying one of those cheap retractable dog leashes and using it as a winder for my endfed. sounds dumb but it works surprisingly well on the trail.

12 contacts at 10w from a summit is solid for a first activation. what freq were you on mostly, 20m? i find 40 gets me more contacts when im doing afternoon activations but it really depends on where you are and the time of day. also the KX2 is a great choice for this stuff, ive been eyeing one for a while but hard to justify when the 705 is already paid off.