by William Eric McFadden

From the Strouds Run State Park website:

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

Eric's station On Sunday, January 8, 2023, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Strouds Run State Park (K-1994) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

On a cool but warming early January morning, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, arrived at Dow Lake Dam at around 1645 UTC. After walking the two small dogs, Theo and Ginny, who had refused to stay at home, Eric deployed his 28½' wire vertical on his 31' Jackite fiberglass telescoping mast on his drive-on base and deployed his Elecraft KX3 inside his car. Eric was on the air at 1705 UTC.

As expected, Eric found he had good cell-signal at this location and he would be able to spot himself on the POTA Spots website and to use POTA Spots to identify possible Park-to-Park (P2P) QSOs.

Finding himself a frequency to run on 20m, Eric began calling CQ and was pleased to see he was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. Eric's first QSO came at 1706 UTC with N4WN in Florida. QSOs came very quickly, with Eric's sixteenth QSO coming at 1719 UTC with SM4BNZ in Sweden. This run included a P2P QSO with N9MM who was activating Sam Houston National Forest (K-4417) in Texas; QSOs with operators located in Italy and France; and QSOs with operators located in Florida (2), Michigan, Texas (2), Illinois, Idaho, Georgia, New York, South Carolina, Wisconsin (2), and California.

Switching to 40m, Eric found a frequency to run, began calling CQ, and was again pleased to be auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1725 UTC with AK9A in Wisconsin. QSOs on 40m came quickly, with Eric's fifteenth QSO in this run coming at 1738 UTC with KD2FLG in New Jersey. This run included QSOs with operators located in Wisconsin (2), West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey (2), Illinois (2), North Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, New York, Virginia, and Tennessee.

In all, Eric made thirty-one QSOs, including one P2P QSO, in about thirty-three minutes of operating time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.

A view of Dow Lake from atop the dam
A view of Dow Lake from atop the earthen dam.

The dam's drain
The earthen dam's drain.

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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