so i finally did my first activation on saturday, W6/NC-441 up near the lake, took about 2 hours to hike up and i was pretty winded by the time i got to the activation zone lol. brought my FT-818 and a cheap end fed that i just threw up between two trees and it actually worked way better than i thought it would.

made about 11 contacts on 20m SSB and then a handful on 40m before the band just died on me. got spotted on SOTAwatch pretty quick which helped a ton, i didnt realize how much chasers actually watch that thing. one guy chased me from germany which i still cant believe, like i was running maybe 5 watts into a wire in the woods.

only thing that went sideways was my battery situation - i brought what i thought was a fully charged lipo but it was reading low before i even finished my second frequency. gonna be more careful about that next time. also the summit ref on the SOTA database had the wrong access road info so the approach took longer than it should have but whatever, part of the fun i guess.

anyway just wanted to share, if anyone's been on the fence about trying it just do it. already looking at my next one.

congrats on the first one, that feeling when a european station comes back to you at QRP from a summit is pretty hard to beat. W6/NC-441 is a decent hike too, not super technical but enough to make you earn it.

the battery thing gets everyone at least once. i run two smaller lipos now instead of one big one just because if one acts up i still have a backup. also worth checking the cell voltage before you leave the car, not just the pack voltage - had one that showed 12v fine but one cell was already marginal and it just fell off a cliff mid-activation.

SOTAwatch is everything for getting chasers, and if you can self-spot from the summit with a cell signal even better. some activators also post an alert the day before so the chasers are already watching. sounds like you had a solid run for a first time out.

thats awesome, i've been wanting to try SOTA for like a year now but keep putting it off because im not sure what antenna to bring. did you build that end fed yourself or buy it? i have an 818 too so the setup sounds pretty similar to what i'd be working with