Description
On Sunday, July 23, 2023, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Lake Logan State Park in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.
While on his way to Granville to continue helping his parents downsize, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, stopped at the fishing peninsula on the east shore of Lake Logan to perform a quick activation.
Arriving at the fishing peninsula at about 1415 UTC, Eric found the area to be nearly empty. Selecting an out-of-the-way place to park near a well-placed sign-post, Eric deployed his 28½' wire vertical on his 31' Jackite telescoping fiberglass mast strapped to the sign-post. Placing his Elecraft KX3 on the his folding camp-chair's flip-up table, Eric was on the air at 1426 UTC.
Eric's station.
The mast bungied to the sign-post.
As at his previous activations of this park, Eric had good cell-signal at this location, and he would be able 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 20m. Finding himself a frequency, Eric began calling CQ and was quickly auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1428 UTC with KJ7DT in Idaho. This was followed at 1429 UTC by a QSO with KK7RK in Arkansas. Becoming aware that another station could be weakly heard calling CQ on the frequency, Eric moved slight up-frequency, updated his spot on POTA Spots, and continued his run. Eric's first QSO after the frequency-change came at 1433 UTC with N1XV in New Jersey. QSOs came quickly, with Eric's twelveth QSO coming at 1445 UTC with WI5D in Missouri. This run included a P2P QSO with N2EPE at Beechwood State Park (K-2012) in New York and QSOs with operators located in Idaho, Arkansas, New Jersey, Minnesota, Florida (3), Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Missouri.
Eric finished his operation by checking POTA Spots for P2P QSO opportunities and at 1447 UTC he made a P2P QSO on 40m with N9DBJ who was performing a two-fer activation of Cagles Mill Lake National Recreation Area (K-4163) and Lieber State Recreation Area (K-5685) in Indiana.
Lake Logan.
In all, Eric made thirteen QSOs, including two P2P QSOs, in just about twenty-one minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with five watts output.
Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program.
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