Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Great Seal State Park, OH

On Wednesday, May 14, 2025, two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed successful activations of Great Seal State Park in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

While driving to Four Days in May and Hamvention, and following successful activations of Lake Alma State Park, Thomas Witherspoon, K4SWL, and Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, stopped at Great Seal State Park to perform activations. While Eric had previously activated this park, it was to be a new park for Thomas.

Thomas and Eric arrived at Great Seal State Park at about 1545 UTC and spent a few minutes exploring, finally deciding to perform their operations at the scenic overlook camping area. Thomas chose himself a level picnic table under well-placed trees, and Eric decided to set up his station in the shade of a large pine tree atop the hill.

As they had hoped, Thomas and Eric had good cell-signal within the park, and they would be able to spot themselves on POTA Spots (link) and to use POTA Spots to identify possible park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

Thomas very quickly threw a line into the selected tree, pulled up an antenna, and began making QSOs on 20m. View Thomas's complete report (with photos and video) here: QRPer.com.

Thomas handed Eric a Chelegance MC-750 field vertical antenna to use for this activation, and Eric began setting it up on top of the hill. He had placed the stake in the ground, attached the telescoping radiator and adjusted it for 40m, and deployed two of the four counterpoise wires when he heard a commercial-grade lawn mower engine start. He walked down to where the mower was, asked the driver, and was dismayed to be told that mowing on the hill was to start immediately. Eric returned to the top of the hill and took down and packed the MC-750. Walking back down the hill, he looked over the available picnic tables and chose one that was nearly level and not too close to Thomas's station. Not wanting to have any part of his station on the grass because of the mower, Eric deployed his Tufteln (link) 35' end-fed random wire antenna as a sloper on a his Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast leaned into a tree, placing a single 17' counterpoise wire directly on the gravel. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on the picnic table, Eric was on the air at 1610 UTC.

Because Thomas was still operating on 20m, Eric began his operation on 40m. After finding himself a clear frequency to run, he began calling "CQ POTA" and self-spotted himself on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1612 UTC with KC5F in North Carolina. This was followed at 1614 UTC by a QSO with AG2O in New York, and at 1615 UTC by a QSO with stalwart POTA hunter AA5UZ in Louisiana.

When Thomas was finished on the band, Eric switched to 20m and immediately completed a P2P QSO with Thomas. Finding himself a clear frequency to run, he began calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1620 UTC with K0KLA in Colorado. QSOs came quickly, with Eric's eleventh QSO in this run coming at 1632 UTC with WA5ZEG in Texas. This run included QSOs with operators located in Arizona, Colorado, Florida (3), Idaho, Iowa, North Carolina (2), Oklahoma, and Texas.

In all, Eric made fifteen 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.

Because they had miles yet to drive, Thomas and Eric quickly tore down the station and re-packed the car.

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