by William Eric McFadden

From the wildlife managements area's website:

With hundreds of incredible lakes and streams to visit, you can spend your entire life searching for the best fishing waters in West Virginia. But one of the joys of fishing is that you can find something to enjoy almost anywhere you cast a line. And sometimes, a nearby lake or stream you’ve overlooked has exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Elk Fork Lake in Jackson County is one of those lakes. At 209 acres, this lake may be smaller than other fishing destinations in West Virginia, but what it lacks in size is made up with the quality of fish you can catch and the peaceful setting of the surrounding Elk Fork Lake WMA. And you don’t have to travel far off the main highway to find it.

Pictures

Description

On Sunday, October 22, 2023, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Cedar Lakes State Recreation Area in West Virginia as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

After being alerted the day before by his friend Thomas Witherspoon, K4SWL, that new units had been added to the POTA program, and following a visit to Cedar Lakes State Recreation Area, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, made his first visit to Elk Fork Lake Wildlife Management Area, K-9914, during the POTA Support Your Parks Weekend — Autumn event. Eric was accompanied by his wife, Vickie, the two dogs, Theo and Ginny.

The park sign

Eric, Vickie, and the dogs arrived at the boat-launch area of Elk Fork Lake at about 1930 UTC. Eric found an out-of-the-way place to park at one end of the Sparking lot and, after walking the dogs, deployed his 40m EFHW antenna as a sloper up to the top of his Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass pole supported on a drive-on base. Setting up his Elecraft KX3 on his folding camp-chair in grassy area adjacent to the lake, Eric was on the air at 1943 UTC.

Eric's station
The mast, drive-on base, and 40m EFHW antenna.

Eric's station
The 40m EFHW antenna, feedpoint detail.

Eric's station
Eric's KX3 station.

Eric was pleased to find he had good cell signal and would be able use POTA Spots (link) to spot himself and to identify possible park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

As at the earlier operation at Cedar Lakes State Recreation Area, Eric found that 20m had a very elevated noise floor, so he started his operation on 40m. Finding himself a frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and pleased to be quickly auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1949 UTC with NR3S in Delaware. QSOs came very quickly, with Eric's twenty-eighth QSO coming at 2017 UTC with NE4J in North Carolina. This run included a P2P QSO with K2EAG who was performing a two-fer activation of Finger Lakes National Forest (K-4518) and Erie Canalway Heritage Corridor National Park Reserve (K-6532) in New York and QSOs with operators located in Delaware (2), Ontario, Alabama, Tennessee (3), South Carolina, Kentucky, New York (4), Connecticut, Arkansas, North Carolina (4), Virginia (3), Michigan, Ohio (2), Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Elk Lake
The view of Elk Lake from Eric's operating position.

After his run ended, and while he was cleaning up his log, Eric heard N4AAJ call "CQ SOTA" on the frequency Eric had just vacated. Eric quickly called completed the QSO at 2020 UTC. Unfortuntely, N4AAJ didn't send his SOTA summit designator, and Eric didn't take the time to consult SOTAWatch (link), so Eric didn't learn which summit N4AAJ was activating.

In all, Eric logged twenty-nine QSOs with two P2P QSOs. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with five watts output.

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