so i finally dragged myself up W4T/SU-001 last weekend with the KX2 and a linked dipole and honestly the whole thing was kind of a disaster but also kind of great at the same time. spent like 45 minutes trying to get the dipole up in the trees because i forgot my throw bag at home so i was just chucking a rock tied to some paracord which... yeah. eventually got it up about 20 feet which is not ideal but whatever. called CQ for maybe 10 minutes and then the pile started and i totally panicked and forgot how to log on paper like i just blanked on it. ended up getting 7 contacts which i think is enough to count? i read it was 4 minimum. anyway the hike down was brutal because my boots are garbage and it rained. would do it again probably.

haha yeah the throw bag thing gets everyone at least once. i used to use a tennis ball with fishing line and that worked ok until i lost like 6 of them in the trees. 7 contacts is definitely enough, 4 is the minimum for it to count as an activation so youre good. paper logging gets easier fast, most people just do a simple grid, callsign, time, band, mode and thats it. the KX2 is a great choice for that kind of thing by the way, runs forever on a small battery.

man the rain on the way down is the worst, did my first activation in the smokies and my boots were completely soaked by the time i hit the parking lot. also dont worry about panicking during the pile, everyone does. i still mess up exchanges sometimes and ive done like 30 activations at this point