by William Eric McFadden
From the Wayne National Forest website:
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The Wayne National Forest is a patchwork of public land that covers over a quarter million acres of Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. The Forest is divided into three units managed out of two Ranger District offices located in Nelsonville and Ironton, with a field office in Marietta.
The Forest features over 300 miles of trails for hiking, all-terrain vehicle riding, mountain biking, or horseback riding in season. The trails are open to ATVs, mountain bikes, and horseback riders from mid-April to mid-December each year. Come visit the Wayne and hike or ride our trails!
From the North Country National Scenic Trail website:
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Come to the North Country. Trek the hills and valleys. Stand on the shores of lakes & streams from glaciers 10,000 years before. Clear-flowing water, red/gold of autumn, a fairyland of snow, open prairies, and distant horizons paint the land. Historic sites along the way tell how America settled and grew as a nation. From North Dakota to New York (and soon Vermont), adventure is never far away.
Pictures
Description
On Sunday, May 2, 2021, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team
performed a successful two-fer activation of Wayne National Forest (K-4521) and North Country National Scenic Trail
in Ohio (K-4239) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.
Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, performed the quick two-fer activation at Tom Jenkins Dam on a sunny, warm late morning.
This activation was a quick activation to finish off Eric's pursuit of the POTA Oasis Repeat Offender Activator Award
for Wayne National Forest and was his twentieth activation of the park. This was Eric's nineteenth activation of
North Country National Scenic Trail.
Eric arrived at Tom Jenkins dam at 1325 UTC and, finding the parking lot nearly empty, quickly deployed his 28½' wire vertical on the Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast and drive-on mount. Because Eric had forgotten to pack his folding chairs, he set up his KX3 inside the car. Eric was on the air at 1334 UTC.
As at previous visits to this location, Eric found he had good cell-signal and he was able to spot himself on the POTA Spots website and to use POTA Spots to identify possible Park-to-Park (P2P) QSOs.
Immediately upon turning on his KX3, Eric heard strong stations participating in the New England QSO Party and he quickly made two NEQP QSOs on 40m.
Eric checked POTA Spots for possible P2P QSOs but found none at that time.
Finding himself a frequency on 40m, Eric spotted himself to POTA Spots and began calling "CQ POTA". QSOs came steadily, and within about twelve minutes Eric had made seven QSOs.
Eric paused to check POTA Spots for possible P2P QSOs and made a P2P QSO on 30m with WD5GRW who was activating Ray Roberts Lake State Park (K-3051) in Texas and a P2P QSO on 40m with KC5F who was performing a two-fer activation at Mountains to Sea State Trail (K-8313) and Blue Ridge National Parkway (K-3378) in North Carolina.
Again calling "CQ POTA" on 40m, Eric made four QSOs in about ten minutes.
In all, Eric made fifteen QSOs with three P2P QSOs. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at the 5-watt level.
Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for an operation at Wayne National Forest, KFF-4527.
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