so i finally got off my butt and did my first WWFF activation out at a state forest near me (KFF-1823 for anyone curious) and honestly it was a blast, way more fun than i expected. i was a bit nervous going in because ive only been licensed about 8 months and most of my operating has been from home on FT8 so actual voice contacts in a park felt pretty different.

i brought my KX2 and a wire antenna that i slung over a tree branch, got it up maybe 25 feet or so, and managed 47 contacts over about 3 hours on 40m mostly with a little time on 20m. a few people were specifically hunting the reference which was cool, didnt really expect that.

anyway my questions - does it matter how long you operate from the reference or is it literally just 44 contacts minimum to count as a valid activation? and also do you have to self-spot or will hunters spot you anyway? i spotted myself on the POTA cluster since i couldnt find a WWFF specific one easily and that seemed to work fine but not sure if thats the right approach. also do i submit the log to wwff.us or somewhere else, the website is a little confusing to navigate

congrats on the first activation, 47 contacts for a first time out is a solid result especially on voice. to answer your questions - yes the 44 QSO minimum is the threshold for a valid activation, no minimum time requirement as far as i know, some folks knock it out in an hour if conditions are good and theyre on a popular reference.

for spotting, wwff has their own cluster at wwff.ca and you can also use the regular POTA app spots since a lot of WWFF references are co-designated as POTA parks anyway, so hunters use both. self-spotting helps a lot especially early in your session, but hunters will often pick you up and re-spot you which is nice. for log submission it goes through the wwff.us site yep, you create an account and upload an ADIF. just make sure your log has the reference number in there correctly and the date. some people use HAMRS or Fast Log Entry in the field which makes the upload pretty painless.

nice work getting out there. i remember my first one i was so worried about messing up the log that i barely paid attention to signal reports lol. one thing i'll add - if the reference is also a POTA park (a lot of them overlap) you can submit the same log to both programs and get credit in both which is pretty great. double dipping in the best way possible. welcome to the addiction, your wallet will suffer