by William Eric McFadden

From the Lake Logan State Park website:

Located within the rolling Appalachian foothills of southeastern Hocking Valley, Lake Logan State Park is secluded and offers a 400-acre lake for boating as well as prime hiking, fishing, and hunting opportunities.

From the North Country Trail Association website:

The North Country National Scenic Trail is the longest in the National Trails System, stretching 4,800 miles across eight states from North Dakota to Vermont, traversing forests and farmlands, remote terrain and nearby communities. Whether you’re looking to day-hike a few miles or plan a longer overnight backpacking trip, a multitude of diverse landscapes and hiking opportunities are waiting for you.

Pictures

Description

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful two-fer activation of Lake Logan State Park (US-1969) and North Country National Scenic Trail (US-4239) in Ohio as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

Having only recently been able to confirm where North Country National Scenic Trail passes through Lake Logan State Park, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, stopped on the Evans Road causeway within the state park for the two-fer activation while on his way to Obetz, Ohio. Eric was accompanied by his wife Vickie and the two dogs Theo and Lily.

map showing North Country National Scenic Trail passing through Lake Logan State Park
map showing North Country National Scenic Trail passing through Lake Logan State Park
Maps from NorthCountryTrail.org (link) showing
that NCNST passes over Evans Rd within
Lake Logan State Park; click to embiggen.

Sign pointing to Buckeye Trail
The sign pointing to Buckeye Trail within
Lake Logan State Park; in this part of Ohio,
Buckeye Trail and NCNST are coincident.

Arriving at the Evans Road causeway, Eric was pleased to find it has a wide enough berm to allow safe parking alongside the road. Finding himself a spot, Eric parked his car and quickly deployed a Tufteln (link) EFRW as a 29' vertical atop a Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast supported in a drive-on base and placed two 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground. Mounting his Elecraft KX2 on the car's passenger-side dashboard, Eric was on the air at 2025 UTC.

Eric's mast and antenna
Eric's car-supported mast and antenna on the causeway.

Eric's KX2 station
Eric's KX2 station inside the car.

As he had expected, Eric had good cell-signal at this location and he would be able to spot himself 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. While tuning around to find himself a clear frequency to run, he found the W1AW/5, the ARRL America 250 WAS station in Texas, calling CQ and Eric completed a QSO with him at 2026 UTC. After finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and his first QSO in this run came at 2029 UTC—before he was even able to self-spot himself on POTA Spots—with WA2SPL in Vermont. He self-spotted himself and his second QSO in this run came at 2030 UTC with KG8YT in Michigan and, during this QSO, Eric's mast collapsed; he was able to complete the QSO and then rushed out re-extend the mast. His third QSO in this run came at 2032 UTC with W4LYH in New York. After this, QSOs came quickly and without additional drama, with Eric's twenty-fifth QSO in this run coming at 2058 UTC with K4NU in Florida. This run included QSOs with operators located in Alabama, Arkansas (2), Florida (3), Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey (4), New York (2), North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington (2), and Wisconsin.

Eric finished his operation by hunting for P2P QSOs and at 2104 UTC he completed a P2P QSO on 20m with WW9R at Valley of Fire State Park (US-2637) in Nevada.

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

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.

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