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 Sunday, January 14, 2024, 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.
Following a visit to the SCARF Hamfest, and despite a bitter cold temperature of 22°F (-5.5°C) and winds gusting to 20mph (32kph), Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, chose to attempt a quick POTA activation of Strouds Run State Park. Arriving at the empty swim-beach parking area at 1540 UTC, Eric parked his car and deployed his 28½' wire vertical on his 31' Jackite fiberglass telescoping mast on a drive-on base. Precisely because of the bitter temperature and biting wind, Eric deployed his Elecraft KX3 inside the relative comfort of his car. Eric was on the air at 1549 UTC.
Eric's station.
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.
Eric began his operation on 20m. Finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and, as expected, was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. Eric's first QSO came at 1551 UTC with W5WMQ in Kansas, and the pile-up didn't stop until 1646 UTC, after Eric had made fifty-four QSOs and, regrettably, because of time constraints, he had to announce the end of his activation while numerous hunters were still calling. Twenty minutes into this surprising run, the gusting winds had flexed the 31' Jackite mast enough to cause it to collapse in upon itself, forcing Eric had to rush back out into the bitter wind to extend it again. The run included a P2P QSO with N9MM at Sam Houston National Forest (K-4417), a P2P QSO with WX4TW at Green River State Game Land (K-6906) in North Carolina, and QSOs with operators located in Finland (2), Poland (2), Italy, Kansas, Minnesota (2), Illinois (6), Missouri, North Carolina (2), New York (5), Texas (5), Florida (5), California, Massachusetts (3), South Dakota, Maine, Michigan, South Carolina, New Jersey (4), Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin (3), Connecticut, Ontario (2), Vermont, and Arkansas.
Dow Lake and the snow-covered beach.
Eric had planned to operate some on 40m, too, but the run on 20m lasted so didn't have time to do so.
In all, Eric made fifty-four QSOs, with two P2P QSOs, in just under an hour of operating time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.
Eric was very surprised at how effective 20m was during this operation: the band provided long-distance paths to Europe, California, and Texas as well short-distance paths to Michigan, Illinois, and New York.
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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