by William Eric McFadden
From the Strouds Run State Park website:
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Located outside of the city of Athens and within easy driving distance of Ohio University, Strouds Run State Park surrounds Dow Lake and draws a mix of trail and lake users. Miles of hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding provide scenic views from rugged trails. The lake offers boating, paddling, swimming and a shaded campground.
Pictures
Description
On Saturday, November 16, 2024, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Strouds Run State Park (US-1994) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.
After dropping his wife off at an arts and craft show, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, went to Strouds Run State Park's Bulldog Shelter to perform a quick activation. Eric was accompanied by the two small dogs, Theo and Ginny, who chose to stay in the warm car while Eric operated in the picnic shelter.
Eric arrived at Bulldog Shelter at about 1635 UTC and took a few minutes to walk the dogs and allow them to smell everything before setting up his station in the unoccupied picnic shelter. Eric 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, placing three 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on the picnic table, Eric was on the air at 1650 UTC.
Eric's KX2 station and EFRW antenna.
As he had expected, Eric did have cell-signal at this location and he was able to access POTA Spots to spot himself, if necessary, and to find Park-to-Park (P2P) QSO opportunities.
Eric began his operation on 20m, finding himself a clear frequency to run and calling "CQ POTA". He was auto-spotted on POTA Spots and his first QSO came at 1655 UTC with AB5AA in Texas. QSOs came quickly, with Eric's twelfth QSO coming at 1705 UTC with W6KSR at Fort Dummer State Park (US-3114) in Vermont. This run included the aforementioned P2P QSO and QSOs with operators located in Texas, North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia (2), Mississippi, New York (2), Missouri, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Vermont.
Eric completed his activation by hunting for P2P QSOs. At 1710 UTC, he completed a P2P QSO on 20m with KC1UML who was activating Great Brook Farm State Park (US-2435) in Massachusetts.
The view of Dow Lake from Eric's operating location.
The water level is way down from normal.
Eric's logsheet.
In all, Eric made thirteen QSOs, including two P2P QSOs, in about twenty minutes of on-air time.
Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for an operation at Strouds Run State Park, KFF-1994.
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