Lisa Anderson

4 contacts is 4 contacts man, activation is valid. ive done summits where i got exactly 4 and called it good and went home. the mountain doesnt care how many QSOs you make lol. also yeah CW on a cold summit is rough too, my sending goes to garbage when im cold and tired. some guys swear by a straight key for activations because there's less to go wrong mechanically but i cant send straight key for anything so that doesnt help me much.

oh man that is basically everyones first qso honestly. mine i forgot to say over and just kept talking and the other guy had no idea i was done so we both sat in silence for like 20 seconds before i figured out what happened. you'll laugh about it in a month trust me. the guys on local repeaters are usually pretty forgiving with new hams, most of them remember being in the same spot

nice work getting out there. i did my first one last year and spent way too long stressing about the paperwork before i just figured it out by trial and error lol. one thing i'll add is the SIG fields thing the other guy mentioned is exactly right, i missed that my first upload and it just sat unprocessed for like two weeks before i noticed. the validation tool really does help.
also if you have a smartphone out there the WWFF spotter app or just using hamspots works fine for self-spotting mid-activation, i usually just fire a spot off after my first 5 or 6 contacts once i know the frequency is working. gets the hunters rolling in pretty quick after that

the nets thing — honestly just listen for like one full session before you try to check in. you'll hear exactly how everyone else does it and then it wont feel weird. most net controls are really patient with new folks too so even if you mess up the timing nobody cares

so we have a county-level exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and im trying to nail down the power situation before i start stressing about antennas. last time we ran this thing we had a Honda EU2200i and it worked fine but we were also only running an IC-7300 and a laptop, maybe 150-200w draw total. this time we're adding a second station (probably another 7300 or maybe a 706 if that's what somebody brings) and we want to keep a go-kit HT charging bank going too.
my gut says the EU2200i can probably handle it if we're smart about it but im wondering if anyone has actually pushed one of those generators with two HF rigs and misc accessories at the same time. the 2200 watts is peak, continuous is more like 1800 i think, and once you factor in the inverter efficiency and whatever else is pulling... i dont know, it feels tight. we also want to have a fallback battery setup in case the genny craps out or we need to go quiet for some reason (noise complaints have been an issue at this site before).
on the antenna side we're thinking two separate dipoles on separate feedlines, oriented about 90 degrees from each other to cut down on intermod between the two stations. spacing is gonna be whatever the site allows, probably 75-100ft apart if we're lucky. anyone done this at an exercise and had interference issues even with that separation? last exercise we had some nasty audio on the other station when both were transmitting near the same time and it was just one antenna shared with a switch. separate antennas should fix that right?
anyway open to any thoughts on the power side especially, that's the part keeping me up at night