Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Great Council State Park

On Sunday, June 9, 2024, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Great Council State Park in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

Great Council State Park is a brand-new Ohio State Park, having had the grand-opening event only two days previously, on Friday, June 7.

Following a family gathering in Springfield, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, visited the three-day-old Great Council State Park for a tour and a quick POTA activation. Eric was accompanied by his wife Vickie, their toddler grandson Archer, and their two little dogs, Theo and Ginny.

The weather just about perfect for a POTA operation, with a blue sky and puffy white clouds, a comfortable temperature, and a light breeze. Arriving at the new state park's parking area about an hour before the Interpretive Center was to close for the day, Eric found the parking lot to nearly full, but he managed to find a parking space along the perimeter, one free from overhead lines and other obstructions. After parking his car, and while Archer and the dogs slept in the car, and while Vickie remained in the car to watch over Archer, Eric made a quick tour of the new Interpretive Center and the surrounding grounds.

The 12,000-square-foot interpretive center
modeled after a historic Shawnee longhouse.

Tecumseh.

Inside the Interpretive Center.

Returning to his car and confident that he was parked in a location that was as close to ideal for a low-profile radio operation as could be found on that particular afternoon, Eric set up his station. Deploying his 28½' end-fed wire antenna as a vertical supported on his 31' Jackite telescoping fiberglass mast on a drive-on base, and placing his Elecraft KX3 on his folding camp-chair's flip-up table at the base of the mast, Eric was on the air at 2043 UTC.

As he had expected he would, Eric found he had good cell-signal at the park and he would be able to spot himself on POTA Spots (link) and to use POTA Spots to identify possible park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

Eric began his operation on 40m and immediately noticed an S5 noise floor on the band. Nevertheless, he began calling "CQ POTA", was auto-spotted on POTA Spots, and his first QSO came at 2046 UTC with K9DRP in Illinois. Eric kept calling CQ, but the noise floor got to him and at 2049 UTC he switched to 20m.

On 20m, Eric found a much lower noise floor. After calling "CQ POTA", he was again auto-spotted on POTA Spots and his first QSO in this run came at 2050 UTC with K4NYX in Florida. QSOs came quickly, with Eric's fifteenth QSO in this run coming at 2109 UTC with N1OI in Rhode Island. This run included QSOs with operators located in Florida (4), Arkansas, Louisiana (2), Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Utah, Missouri, and Rhode Island.

Wanting to give closer hunters a chance, and with 40m useless because of the high noise floor, Eric switched to 30m and found it to have a reasonable S3 noise floor. He began calling "CQ POTA", was auto-spotted on POTA Spots, and his first QSO in this run came at 2113 UTC with WA2FBN in New York. This was followed at 2114 UTC by a QSO with Eric's friend Thomas, K4SWL, in North Carolina. Eric would have liked to operate longer and give more hunters the opportunity to put this new park in their logs, but because they were looking at a two-hour drive back to Athens, and because their daughter was relying on them to pick her up at her work at 8pm, Eric ended his operation at 2115 UTC.

In all, Eric made eighteen QSOs in just about half an hour of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with five watts output.

Before their arrival at Great Council State park, Eric had joked to his wife that, since the park was so new, he wouldn't be surprised to find another activator already at the park when they arrived. They didn't, however, find another activator already at the small park, and Eric heard no evidence in his receiver of another activator performing a super-stealthy operation at the park. Eric was surprised that this brand-new park hadn't generated deep pileups for him, and attributed the relatively calm activation to be a result of an ionosphere disturbed by a solar A-Index of 14. Upon arriving home, however, Eric discovered that prior his own activation, Great Council State Park had been activated at least eleven times, including three times on the day of the park's official opening ceremony on June 7. (Interestingly, the very first recorded activation of Great Council State Park took place on May 20, nearly three weeks prior to the opening of the park on June 7.) By the time Eric had performed his activation, well over 400 QSOs had been from the park, a statistic that, perhaps, explains why Eric hadn't encountered a massive pile of hunters hungry for the new park during his activation. However, Eric's activation turned out to be the first CW POTA activation of the park.