Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Forked Run State Park

One member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team succeeded in performing a valid activation of Forked Run State Park, US-1951, in Ohio as part of the the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, visited Forked Run State Park on a hot summer afternoon afternoon. He was accompanied by his wife Vickie, his grandson Archer, and his small dog Theo. The visit was Vickie's idea: the evening prior she had suggested a picnic at a state park would be fun. Eric chose Forked Run State Park because he had previously been there only once and he thought the chance of finding shade was better at this park than at other parks he considered.

Eric, et al, arrived at Forked Run State Park at about 1800 UTC and spent a few minutes exploring the park before Eric selected a shaded picnic table near the boat-ramp for the picnic and activation.

Following the lovely picnic, Eric set up his station. He deployed his Tufteln (link) 35' end-fed random wire antenna as a sloper up to the top of his Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast held upright on a spike. Because Archer was running around with his bubble-gun, Eric minimized the trip-hazard by initially deploying a single 17' counterpoise wire, placing it directly on the ground opposite the 35' radiator. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on the picnic table, Eric was on the air at 1851 UTC.

Eric was pleased to find he had a bit cell signal at his location, enough to use POTA Spots (link) to spot himself and to check for park-to-park (P2P) QSO possibilities. (His cell signal turned out to be intermittent, but he still had enough to get the job done.)

Eric began his operation on 20m by finding himself a clear frequency to run, beginning to call "CQ POTA", and self-spotting himself on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1855 UTC with WJ1B in Connecticut. This was followed at 1905 UTC by a QSO with KI5JIM in Oklahoma and at 1906 UTC by a QSO with WY1U in Connecticut. During the ten minutes between his first and second QSOs, Eric paused to lay out a second 17' counterpoise wire, hoping that slightly reduced ground-losses would improve his QSO-rate.

When it became apparent that 20m just wasn't going to deliver the QSOs, Eric laid out his third 17' counterpoise wire, found a clear 40m frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1918 UTC with N1XV in New Jersey. The 40m band turned out to be much more productive than 20m had been, with Eric's eleventh QSO in this run coming at 1938 UTC with VA3UZ who was performing a two-fer activation of Port Bruce Provincial Park (CA-0347) and Great Lakes Waterfront Trail Recreation Site (CA-6003) in Ontario. This run included the aforementioned two-fer P2P QSO with VA3UZ, a P2P QSO with N3CZ who was activating Shining Rock Wilderness Area (US-11019) in North Carolina, a P2P QSO with Eric's father W8EOG who was activating Blackhand Gorge State Nature Preserve (US-9393) in Ohio, and QSOs with operators located in New Jersey, New York (2), North Carolina, Ohio (3), Ontario (2), and Pennsylvania (2).

In all, Eric made fourteen QSOs, with four P2P QSOs (counting the two-fer), in about forty-eight minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.

After tearing down his station and re-packing the car, the trio plus the dog made the short drive to the park's swim-beach area, just to check it out, before pointing the car toward home.

Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program