so i finally did my first activation last weekend, went up to a local summit that was only like a 2 mile hike in, nothing crazy. brought my KX2 and a random wire thrown up in a tree and managed to get 6 contacts before the weather started looking sketchy and i bailed. got the 4 contacts needed for it to count which i was pretty happy about for a first try.

couple things i wasnt sure about though. the summit reference i used, i looked it up on the sota database and it showed as valid but when i went to log it on sotawatch after i got home it kept giving me some weird error about the reference format. i tried W4/SC-042 and it just wouldnt take it, kept saying invalid or something. anyone run into this? also is there a way to see if someone else is planning to activate the same summit so you dont show up and find another op already there, not that it matters too much i guess but still curious.

also for the chasers out there - do you guys actually sit and monitor sotawatch alerts all day or is it more like you check in when you have time and hope someone is out there? ive been on the chasing side a couple times and it feels kind of random whether ill catch anyone

congrats on the first one, that feeling when you get that 4th contact and know it counts is pretty great. on the reference format thing, double check you dont have a space somewhere in there when you're typing it, the sotawatch input is picky about that. also make sure you're using the right association, W4/SC sounds right for south carolina but worth double checking against the ARM document just in case your summit falls near a boundary or something weird.

as for two activators showing up at the same time, it does happen occasionally and honestly most people just work together or take turns, the SOTA community is pretty laid back about it. you can check the alerts page on sotawatch to see if anyone has posted an alert for a specific summit but not everyone bothers to post alerts, especially for local easy summits. i'd say maybe 60% of activations i see have an alert ahead of time and the rest just appear as spots when theyre already up there.

keep at it, once you get a few under your belt you start figuring out what antenna setups are worth the weight and what isnt. i left my 40m dipole home last fall and regretted it, 20m only days can be frustrating if the band isnt cooperating

for chasing i mostly just have sotawatch open in a browser tab and glance at it when i think about it, theres also an app called SOTA Goat if youre on iphone that will push alerts to your phone which is nice. honestly half my chase contacts happen because i randomly see a spot pop up while im already sitting at the radio doing something else. the serious chasers i know have like dedicated alert setups but im not that organized lol