so i finally dragged myself up W4V/SH-001 saturday morning, been putting it off for like 6 months because i kept second guessing my kit. ended up just throwing the KX2 and a 40m EFHW in the pack and going for it. activation worked, got my 4 contacts pretty quick actually, a couple guys on 40 and then switched to 20 and worked somebody in florida which i was not expecting at all from a summit in virginia.

the antenna was kind of a pain to get up, i was trying to use a fiberglass pole and the wind kept pushing it around, ended up just leaning it against some rocks and running the wire at a weird angle but it still played fine. total time on the air was maybe 25 minutes which felt short but i mean it counts right

anyway if anyones been on the fence about trying SOTA just go do it, i wasted way too much time overthinking the gear

congrats on the first one, that feeling when you get that 4th contact is pretty great. dont stress too much about the antenna angle, ive worked plenty of summits where the op was clearly just hanging wire off whatever they could find and the signal was totally fine. the KX2 is a solid choice for this stuff, i run one too and the battery life is just insane for how much power you get out of it.

40m is usually my go-to for shorter range stuff early morning then i'll swing to 20 later in the day, sounds like you figured that out naturally. keep an eye on the SOTA reflector too if you havent already, lots of good trip reports on there and you can see what frequencies people are hanging out on before you even leave the car

yeah the wire angle thing doesnt really matter as much as people make it sound online lol. ive had some of my best contacts with a wire basically going sideways. nice work getting it done, i still havent done my first one and im starting to feel embarassed about it