so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 4 point peak but man i underestimated how much gear i was hauling. brought the ft-818 and a linked dipole and my pack was way heavier than i expected, took like 2.5 hours to get up there and by the time i set up i only had maybe an hour before the weather started looking sketchy.

managed to get 6 contacts on 20m SSB which i think is enough to qualify but honestly the pile up i was hoping for never really happened, think my signal was getting eaten by the terrain on one side. still logged it and the view was worth it even if i was kind of rushed coming down. anybody else do low point summits just to get the hang of it before going bigger

yeah 4 points is a solid starting point honestly, dont let anyone tell you the lower summits arent worth it. i did a bunch of 2 pointers when i was getting my legs under me and it really helped me figure out what gear i actually needed vs what i thought i needed. the ft-818 is a great rig for sota but that linked dipole does add weight, have you looked at an efhw? i switched to one and dropped probably half a pound from my kit which sounds small but after 3 hours of hiking you feel it

6 contacts qualifies so youre good, nice work. i had a similar thing on my second activation where the pile up just never came and i sat there calling CQ for like 20 minutes feeling like an idiot lol. turned out i hadnt spotted myself on SOTAwatch which... yeah. always spot yourself before you start calling