so i finally got off my butt and did my first ever POTA activation last weekend at the state forest about 20 minutes from my house. been meaning to do it for like a year and a half and just kept putting it off. threw the KX2 in my pack with a random wire and the 9:1 unun, found a decent spot near a picnic table away from the parking lot, got set up in maybe 15 minutes which honestly surprised me.

ran 40m mostly, got my 10 contacts pretty quick then just kept going cause it was a nice day. ended up with like 34 in the log before the battery started getting low. only real issue was some RFI from somewhere that came and went, never figured out what it was. probably a car in the lot with some janky electronics or something.

anyway if you've been on the fence about doing your first activation just go do it, the setup is way simpler than i thought it would be and the hunters are super patient with portable ops

congrats on the first one, it gets addictive fast. i remeber my first activation i was so nervous i forgot to spot myself for like the first 20 minutes and then wondered why nobody was calling lol. 34 contacts is a solid first run, what antenna setup were you running length wise? i've been messing with the 29ft wire with a 9:1 and it works pretty well on 40 and 20 but 17m gets weird sometimes

nice, POTA is great. the RFI thing happens to me too at some parks, one time it was literally a solar panel setup on a nearby RV, took me forever to figure out. just part of the fun i guess. i've been doing a lot of SOTA lately too and the pile ups on summits are a whole different beast, everyone wants that summit to summit contact