Having established a reputation for being later to the air than my alert predicted, I have been trying to get that under control. Most of my delays are not associated with setting up, so getting away from home on time is one part of it. Over-optimistic transit times to the parking area is another. Then the time to climb to the summit is something I seem to get wrong too many times. I have stopped short of keeping a diary of times, but that would clearly be the best thing to do!
Once Iām on summit and have decided where to operate from and where Iāll place my pole for the HF antenna, it is a fairly predictable time from that point. I use bags (from sotabeams as they are the ideal size and seem to be robust enough, even for me) to carry my stakes, guying ring with guy ropes and several other guying rings for other poles. Erecting the pole with guys placed at the top of the first section takes about a minute, or maybe two. I long ago stopped trying to use dinky-sized pegs of 3mm metal intended for beaches and now I carry 3 pegs of 6mm (1/4ā) steel. They donāt bend at the first sign of resistance from the rocks below. There are lots of rocks on summits, otherwise there would be no summit. And my plastic mallet whacks them into the ground fairly well. In rare cases I will attach the pole guys to trees or rocks. In one case I used a bit of wood that I anchored down with rocks.
After that I get the doublet or the linked dipole mounted on the top section of the pole, attach feedline, lift the antenna up. Take pegs if needed out to the ends of the antenna and attach to trees or the pegs in the ground if there are no trees or they are at inconvenient points. I have about 3m of cord on each end of the antenna to ensure the actual ends of the wire are well above ground.
Getting the radio out of its protective lunch box, hooking up power, antenna, mike and key takes only a minute. So I guess that could all be done in about 10 mins but sometimes takes longer. I also set up a half wave vertical or the loop on 2m for the HT. The loop is better as it has a large horizontal component and as written elsewhere, horizontal pol is better than vertical on summits. The vertical rolls up and is carried in a second bag, with an extension cable of RG58 of sufficient length to reach the HT or 817.
Before even starting on the antennas I usually remember to turn on the logging tablet and set my summit and park details into vk port=a=log. I also set the phone to share its wifi network so by the time I finish everything else, the tablet has connected to the phone and is ready to use**. Swipe over to the spots page, look at who is where in the last 10 mins, swipe further over to the parks spots page, see if there is someone in some unknown national park or nature reserve, silo or other natural feature, decide who to call if anyone is there, otherwise find a clear freq, ask if in use, self spot on the tablet, call CQ.
And on a 4 summit day, do all that 4 times. Packing up is an important part of the next activation, if done in a different way it will delay the next one as you wonāt be able to find something important. Take care of antennas and feedlines, you would be lost without them working properly.
On average Iād say 15 to 20m setup for HF plus 2m fm. Longer if I set up a 2m beam and even longer if 1296 is included.
** the wifi network set up by an iphone is a peer-to-peer network and it does not broadcast continuously to advertise itself. After setting the wifi sharing option, it broadcasts its id several times but stops after a defined time. If the tablet is not turned on at the time, it may miss the connection. Occasionally this has to be done a second time but mostly it has connected in the minute after this setting is enabled.
**If I use a portable wifi hotspot, it is an infrastructure hotspot so it broadcasts continuously and the tablet connects very quickly.
You made my day 
