Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | ARRL Field Day + POTA Activation Pioneer Weapons Wildlife Management Area + Daniel Boone National Forest

On Saturday, June 28, 2025, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed successful simultaneous activations of Pioneer Weapons Wildlife Management Area (US-10158) and Daniel Boone National Forest (US-4484) in Kentucky as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program while participating in ARRL Field Day.

Eric McFadden, WD8RIF; his wife Vickie; and their grandson were driving to Georgetown, Kentucky, for the annual McFadden family reunion on Sunday and were to spend Saturday night in Morehead so Eric could perform several POTA activations while also participating in ARRL Field Day in class "1B KY". Eric's plans for POTA and Field Day were big, and included visits to Pioneer Weapons Wildlife Management Area (US-10158), the adjacent Zilpo Campground Wildlife Management Area (US-10171), and Twin Knobs Campground Wildlife Management Area (US-10170) located across Cave Run Lake. All three of these units are located entirely within Danial Boone National Forest and would count as two-fer activations within POTA. As will be seen, Eric succeeded in performing a valid two-fer activation within Pioneer Weapons WMA but utterly failed to find access to Zilpo Campground WMA and Twin Knobs Campground WMA.

After checking into the motel in Morehead, Eric abandoned his wife and grandson there and made the forty-three minute drive to his selected location on Buckskin Trailhead Road within Pioneer Weapons WMA, the last few miles of the drive being on Clear Creek Road and Zilpo Road, both of which are stunning sports car roads.

Upon arriving at Buckskin Trailhead Road, two things were immediately obvious, the first being that just beyond this intersection, Zilpo Road leading to Zilpo Campground WMA was gated and locked, with no signage to indicate why it was gated and locked. The second thing being that the entire length of Buckskin Trailhead Road was bordered by tall grass and lacked any shade whatsoever. Eric had selected this location because the Zilpo Campground swim-beach area was a mere five-minute drive from this location via Zilpo Road. Given that Zilpo Road was closed beyond this point so that he was no longer just five minutes away from his second operating location, and given the lack of shade, Eric chose to return along Zilpo Road to find a place with higher elevation, a clear space to set up his station, and ample shade. He found such a spot at a different, unoccupied, trailhead parking area.

Once parked, Eric set up his station. Because his plans included him performing most of his Field Day operating at Zilpo Campground WMA and Twin Knobs Campground WMA, Eric would spend only enough time within Pioneer Weapons WMA to validate his two-fer POTA activation and, because of this, he chose to operate within his car. He deployed his proven 28½' end-fed random wire as a vertical supported on a 31' Jackite telescoping fiberglass mast supported in a drive-on base, placing three 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground. He mounted his Elecraft KX3 transceiver on his car's passenger-side dash, and precariously balanced his Maestro Evolve III sub-notebook logging PC on his lap. Eric was on the air at 1845 UTC.

The Pioneer Weapons WMA sign at the
interesection of Clear Lake and Zilpo Roads.

Eric's mast and antenna.

Eric's KX3 station within the car.

Eric began his operation on 20m and was pleased to find the RF noise-floor on this band to be extraordinarily low, although he did have to put his smartphone into airplane mode to prevent it from radiating noise into his KX3. Starting at the very bottom of the CW portion of the band, Eric began answering calls of "CQ FD" from the stronger stations. Band conditions weren't the best, with significant fading present on 20m, and Eric found that some of the strongest stations couldn't hear him, and that other stations needed several repeats to complete the QSO. Nevertheless, within half an hour, Eric had logged fourteen Field Day QSOs, more than enough for a valide POTA activation.

All of Eric's QSOs CW and were made at five watts output.

Failure to activate Zilpo Campground WMA

Having successfully validated his two-fer POTA activation, Eric desperately wanted to find an alternate road into Zilpo Campground WMA, so he took some photos before quickly tearing down his station and re-packing the car.

Google Maps in the small screen of his smart phone failed to indicate an obvious alternate road into Zilpo Campground, and the saved PDF map (link) of Zilpo Campground also failed to show an alternate road. Eric drove back to the intersection of Zilpo Road and Clear Creek Road and turned left to drive south on Clear Creek Road. After having followed Clear Creek Road all the way to the end, it became clear that this road did not enter Zilpo Campground.

Returning to Zilpo Road, Eric again consulted Google maps and saw that Old Tater Knob Road, a single-lane gravel road with grass growing 8" tall between the tire tracks, diverted south from Zilpo Road and joined it again about 2.6 miles later. Hoping that Old Tater Knob Road joined Zilpo Road on the other side of the closed gate, Eric drove Old Tate Knob Road the entire length back to Zilpo Road. After turning right onto Zilpo Road, it quickly became apparent to Eric that he was still on the wrong side of the gate.

Eric followed Zilpo Road back the gate, catching up with another vehicle in the process. Once at the gate, Eric spoke with the occupants of the other car, who explained that they'd driven from Cattletsburg in order to visit Zilpo Campground. Neither they nor Eric had seen anything online to indicate Zilpo Campground was closed, but the driver of the other car did a Google search and finally found a page stating that Zilpo was to be closed until mid-July while repairs were underway following a recent flooding event. (A sign at the locked gate stating this would have been nice.)

Eric briefly considered walking beyond the locked gate with his equipment but, having no way of knowing whether the gate or the property immediately beyond it were actually within Zilpo Campground WMA, Eric decided to call his plans to activate Zilpo Campground WMA a lost cause.

Because Twin Knobs Campground WMA is on the opposite side of the 8.270-acre Cave Run Lake, the drive from the gate to Twin Knobs would have taken about forty-five minutes, so Eric chose to return first to the hotel and see how Vickie and Archer were doing.

Failure to activate Twin Knobs Campground WMA

Eric had originally planned to to visit Twin Knobs either after dinner on Saturday, or on Sunday morning while driving to Georgetown. Back at the hotel, Vickie convinced him to try Twin Knobs immediately, and she and Archer would accompany him. Always amenable to an offer to perform field operations, Eric acquiesced to this plan.

The drive from the motel to Twin Knobs Campground took just over twenty minutes but, upon arrival, they began seeing signs stating "beach closed--turn around". Eric stopped at the gatehouse at the entrance to Twin Knobs Campground and the staff there verified that the beach had been closed after it was destroyed by the same flood event that had closed Zilpo Campground. Furthermore, the staff on duty couldn't give Eric permission to operate anywhere within Twin Knobs Campground since he wasn't camping within the campground. Thus, as the planned activation at Zilpo Campground was, the planned activation at Twin Knobs Campground was a bust.

ARRL Field Day Results

Despite his big plans to perform three two-fer activations, Eric succeeded in performing only one two-fer activation, and his ARRL Field Day QSO count was a measly fourteen QSOs. Still, one two-fer activation is better than no activation, and fourteen QSOs during a field operation is better than no QSOs during a field operation. Eric's ARRL Field Day score was 540 points which included two points each for fourteen CW QSOs; a power multiplier of five for QRP operation; and bonus points for 100% Emergency Power, Public Location, W1AW Field Day Message (which Eric had copied on Friday night), Site Responsibilities, and Entry Submitted via Web.