From the park website:

Delaware State Park rests in the midst of the fertile agricultural till plains of Delaware County. In contrast to the surrounding farmlands, the park offers a variety of natural features. The area overlies the Olentangy and Ohio Shales, with Delaware Limestone underlying the area of Delaware Dam.

Before settlement of the area, a rich beech-maple forest covered the landscape. That original forest has long since been cut, but a healthy second growth forest is preserved in the park. The woodlands and meadows harbor a diverse array of plant and animal life. Interested observers can find large-flowered trillium, wild blue phlox, Queen Anne's lace, and New England asters.

The fields and woodlots are home to the fox squirrel, woodchuck, rabbit, and white-tailed deer. The adjacent wildlife area is populated with ring-necked pheasant, while the lake and wetlands are a mecca for waterfowl.

Pictures

Eric's station
Eric operates, with Theo: 1 | 2 | 3; photos by Miles McFadden

Description

On Saturday, June 7, 2025, two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Delaware State Park in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

While in central Ohio shopping and running errands, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, his wife Vickie, and their grandson Archer, stopped at Delaware State Park to perform a quick POTA activation. Miles McFadden, KD8KNC, who had been performing his Ohio Air National Guard drill in Mansfield, drove south to meet them at the park, arriving a few minutes after Eric had begun making QSOs.

Vickie, Archer, and Eric arrived at Delaware State Park about 2015 UTC and Eric pretty quickly discovered that even though the state park is near the town of Delaware and is adjacent to US-23, little or no cell signal is available at the park. Having failed to previously announce his activation on POTA Spots, Eric (and Vickie and Archer) left the park and drove south towards Delaware until cell signal was found, at which point Eric announced his upcoming activation on POTA Spots. Returning to the state part, the trio explored a little bit before selecting the Walnut Picnic Area for the activation because of the lovely playground there for Archer to enjoy.

Because propagation conditions were questionable, Eric chose to deploy and test the new 58' radiator he had built to supplement the Tufteln (link) 35' end-fed random wire antenna (EFRW), his reasoning being, "more wire in the air, better signal". Parking his car on the edge of the parking lot, he deployed his 58' EFRW as a sloper supported at the high end on his Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast in a drive-on base. After placing his Elecraft KX2 on his folding camp-chair's flip-up table, positioning the chair to take the slack out of the 58' radiator, and placing three 17' counterpoise directly on the ground, Eric was on the air at 2108 UTC.

Eric's station.

As he had expected, Eric had almost no cell-signal within the park, so he wouldn't be able to reliably use POTA Spots to spot himself on POTA Spots (link) or to use POTA Spots to identify possible park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

Eric began his operation on 20m and was pleased that his KX2's internal ATU had no trouble finding a good match for the 58' EFRW on the band. Finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and must have successfully been auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 2111 UTC with KE5AQD who was activating Lockhart State Park (US-3033) in Texas. QSOs came steadily, with Eric's sixth QSO coming at 2126 UTC with W0MM in Texas. This run included the aforementioned P2P QSO with KE5AQD, a P2P QSO with KA1UUM at Upton Morgan State Forest (US-4972) in New Hampshire, and QSOs with operators located in Florida (2), New Hampshire, and Texas (3).

Switching to 40m, Eric was pleased that his KX2's internal ATU had no trouble finding a good match for the 58' EFRW on the band. He found a clear frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and was again successfully auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 2128 UTC with WB8JAY in Ohio. QSOs on 40m came quickly, with Eric's seventh QSO in this run coming at 2135 UTC with KG8YT in Michigan. This run included QSOs with operators located in Indiana, Michigan, New York (2), Ohio (2), and Pennsylvania.

Switching to 30m, Eric pleased that his KX2's internal ATU easily found a good match for the 58' EFRW on the band. He found a clear frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and appeared to have once again been successfully auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 2140 UTC with KS4S in South Carolina. This was followed at 2144 UTC by a QSO with N4EF in Florida, and at 2145 UTC by a QSO with W0IS in Minnesota.

In all, Eric made sixteen QSOs in just about half an hour of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with five watts output.

Eric operating, and Theo-dog; photos by Miles McFadden.

Despite the easy success in validating his POTA activation, Eric did find propagation to be unsettled, with deep QSB occurring throughout his operation and on all three bands. Eric feels like the 58' radiator provided for better (or, at least, quicker) success than the original 35' radiator would have, but more testing is necessary.

Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program.

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