Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | Freeze Your B___ Off + POTA Activation Lake Logan State Park

On Saturday, February 7, 2026, two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Lake Logan State Park (US-1969 in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program while participating in the annual Arizona ScQRPions Freeze Your B___ Off (FYBO; link) field operating event.

Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, and Miles McFadden, KD8KNC, stopped at the snow-covered and unoccupied swim-beach parking area of Lake Logan State Park following a trip to Columbus to perform the FYBO+POTA operation. They were accompanied by Eric's wife (and Miles's mother) Vickie and Eric's grandchildren (and Miles's nephew and niece) Archer and Thia.

Since FYBO includes a score-multiplier inversely-proportional to temperature at the operating position, Eric had planned to begin his operation outside the car in order to record a low temperature, and then move his station to the inside of the car in order to avoid frostbite. It turned out that Eric was able to complete his entire operation outside the car, despite gusty wind and a temperature of 19°F.

Eric and Miles quickly deployed a Tufteln (link) EFRW as a 29' vertical on a Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast supported in a drive-on base, and placed two 17' counterpoise wires directly on the snow. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on his folding camp-chair's flip-up table, Eric was on the air at 2016 UTC.

As he had expected, Eric had cell-signal at this location and he would be able to spot himself, if needed, on the POTA Spots website (link), and he would be able 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, he began calling "CQ FYBO" and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 2018 UTC with KA8JIL in Florida. QSOs came steadily, with Eric's fourteenth QSO coming at 2042 UTC with WA2FBN in New York. For each QSO, Eric sent the entire FYBO exchange of RST, SPC, first name, power output, and temperature (RST OH ERIC 5W 19F), but none of the stations he worked sent the FYBO exchange. (This was OK, because FYBO is now "work anyone".) Eric's mast collapsed during the middle of his sixth QSO, and Eric had to quickly jump up to redeploy the mast and antenna before continuing his operation. This run included a QSO with XE2S in Mexico, a P2P QSO with N7MEB at Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (US-4398) in Utah, and QSOs with stations located in Florida (2), Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri (2), New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ontario, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

Had Eric been alone, or just with Miles, he might have chosen at this time to escape to the warmth of the car and continue his operation on a second, and possibly a third, band. However, with his wife and grandchildren in the car, he chose to end his operation.

In all, Eric completed fourteen QSOs in about thirty-two minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with a power output of five watts.

During his operation, the lowest temperature Eric recorded was 19°, making Eric eligible for the x6 temperature bonus.

Eric's score ==> 14(QSOs) x 12(SPCs) x 6(Temp) x 4(Field) = 4032 points.

Miles didn't operate but helped with station set-up and tear-down, and he did most of the activation photography.

Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for an operation at Lake Logan State Park, KFF-1969.