From the Burr Oak State Park website:

As one of Ohio's resort parks, Burr Oak State Park blends modern convenience with Ohio's wilderness spirit. Miles of forested ridges and hollows can be found here. The park offers a rustic full-service lodge with family suites and a cozy campground with easy access to the lake. A substantial trail system ranges from moderate to difficult with portions intersecting the statewide Buckeye Trail.

Description

On Saturday, January 18, 2025, two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Burr Oak State Park (US-1939) in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, and Miles McFadden, KD8KNC, visited Burr Oak State Park on the Saturday of the annual Winter Support Your Parks event. The weather was above freezing, although a light intermittent rain was falling and snow from earlier in the month still covered the ground. Eric and Miles were accompanied by Eric's small dog, Theo.

It also being the weekend of the ARRL January VHF Contest, Eric had hoped to complete his activation by making only 6m CW QSOs. Spoiler alert: this didn't happen.

Eric and Miles arrived at Burr Oak State Park at about 1840 UTC, stopping first at the park's Nature Center, which sits within 100' of the North Country National Scenic Trail (US-4239) and would qualify the activation as a two-fer, but the Nature Center was closed. (Because Eric had anticipated needing several hours to complete an activation using only 6m, he wanted to be near a restroom, just in case.) Eric and Miles continued to the Lodge and Conference Center parking lot, found a mostly-level, out-of-the-way parking spot, walked Theo, and proceeded to set up Eric's station. Lacking a directional 6m field antenna, Eric had brought several wire antennas to try but chose to first deploy his no-counterpoise 29' end-fed Zepp (EFZ) as a vertical on his 31' Jackite telescoping fiberglass mast in a drive-on base. Mounting his Elecraft KX3 on his car's dashboard, Eric was on the air at 1905 UTC.

Eric's station; photo by Miles McFadden.


Eric's KX3 station inside his car.

Eric had good cell signal at his chosen location and would be able to spot himself on POTA Spots (link) and to look for park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

Eric was pleased but not surprised that his KX3's internal automatic antenna tuner easily found a match for the no-counterpoise 29' EFZ on the 6m band. Eric had hoped that, it being the peak of the current 11-year solar cycle, and it being a major VHF contest, he would be able to hear lots of CW activity on the 6m band. However, after tuning up and down the band for several minutes and hearing absolutely no signals, and after calling "CQ TEST" himself for several more minutes with no responses, he gave up the idea of performing a 6m-only activation.

Switching to 20m, Eric found himself a clear frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1917 UTC with NI4K in Georgia. QSOs came steadily, if not particularly quickly, with Eric's fourteenth QSO coming at 1939 UTC with K3SLH in Pennsylvania. After noticing that an unusual number of those responding to his calls were very weak in signal-strength, Eric checked the solar indices and found the numbers to be elevated: SFI=227, SN=128, A Index=21, and K Index=2. (The next morning, at the SCARF Hamfest, Eric discussed his activation with fellow POTA enthusiast John, WG8X, who had also found HF conditions to be very rough on Saturday, so Eric is pretty confident the weak signals weren't caused by his no-counterpoise antenna.) This run included a P2P QSO with N1BS at Big River Wildlife Management Area (US-6982) in Rhode Island, a two-fer P2P QSO with KC1BDJ at October Mountain State Forest (US-4717) and Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail (US-4556) in Massachusetts, and QSOs with operators located in Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts (2), Minnesota, Nebraska (2), New Jersey (2), New York (2), Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

Switching to 15m, Eric found a clear frequency to run and began to call "CQ POTA". When he noticed he hadn't been auto-spotted on POTA Spots, he self-spotted himself and continued calling. However, several minutes of calling resulted in zero QSOs.

Eric finished his operation by consulting POTA Spots for P2P QSO opportunities and at 1949 UTC he completed a P2P QSO on 15m with K4NYM at Lake Kissimmee State Park (US-1892) in Florida.

In all, Eric logged fifteen QSOs in forty-four minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.

Miles did not operate but helped with station set-up and tear-down, did most of the activation photography, and took care of Theo-dog.

Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for an operation at Burr Oak State Park, KFF-1939.

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