so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, W6 peak, not gonna say which one but it was only a 2 pointer so nothing crazy. anyway i get up there after like an hour and a half hike with my KX2 and a random wire antenna and i realize i forgot my counterpoise at home sitting on my desk. just sitting there. i spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out if i could use my trekking pole or something as a ground and honestly the SWR was all over the place but i did manage to get 4 contacts on 20 before the battery started acting weird. so technically i qualified the summit but barely. next time im bringing a checklist

haha been there man, i forgot my coax feed line once and had to drive back down. the checklist thing is real, i use a small notecard in my pack now. also on the counterpoise thing, even just a few feet of wire clipped to your rig helps a lot, doesnt have to be resonant or anything fancy. congrats on getting the 4 though, a qualify is a qualify

nice work getting it done anyway. i did a POTA activation last month at a state forest and had a similar thing where my antenna stake kept pulling out of the ground cause the soil was so dry. ended up just holding the wire up with a stick i found. whatever works right