by William Eric McFadden
From the Strouds Run State Park website:
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Located outside of the city of Athens and within easy driving distance of Ohio University, Strouds Run State Park surrounds Dow Lake and draws a mix of trail and lake users. Miles of hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding provide scenic views from rugged trails. The lake offers boating, paddling, swimming and a shaded campground.
Pictures
Description
On Sunday, March 24, 2024, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Strouds Run State Park (US-1994) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.
On a cool but sunny morning, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, visited the swim-beach area in Strouds Run State Park to perform his 96th POTA activation of the park in his quest to earn the Eagle's Nest Repeat Offender Activator Award for 100 activations of the park. Eric was accompanied by little dogs Theo and Ginny.
Eric arrived at the swim-beach area at 1457 UTC and, after walking the dogs, erected his 28½' wire vertical antenna on a drive-on base, deployed three 17' counterpoise wires on the ground, and, because the outside temperature was only 37°, mounted his Elecraft KX3 on his car's passenger-side dashboard. Eric was on the air at 1514 UTC.
Eric's station.
As expected, Eric found he had good cell-signal at this location and he would be able to spot himself on the POTA Spots website (link) and to use POTA Spots to identify possible Park-to-Park (P2P) QSOs.
Eric started his operation on 40m by finding a frequency to run, calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted to POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1516 UTC with WB9DKL in Indiana and his second QSO came at 1519 UTC with W8SUN in Virginia. After several minutes of calling CQ with no responses, Eric checked the solar numbers and found them to be elevated—the A-Index as 36, the K-Index was 3, and both the 40m and 20m bands were shown as being "poor". He decided to switch to 20m and announced on the air his intention, and only then did the pile-up on 40m begin. The first QSO in this second run came at 1522 UTC with N8ZV in Ohio. QSOs came very quickly, with Eric's fifteenth QSO on 40m coming at 1534 UTC with N8RVE in Ohio. This 40m run included a P2P QSO with KB3EOF at Morgan Run State Natural Area (US-6393) in Maryland and QSOs with operators located in Indiana, Virginia, Ohio (4), Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Illinois, Connecticut, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ontario, Michigan, and Maryland.
Switching to 20m, Eric found a frequency to run, called "CQ POTA", and was again auto-spotted to POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1539 UTC with N5KO in California. QSOs came very quickly, with his twenty-fifth QSO in this run coming at 1605 UTC with VE3GSS in Ontario. This run included QSOs with operators located in California, Texas (2), Michigan, Ontario (3), Colorado (2), North Carolina (3), New York (2), Georgia, Wisconsin, Alabama, Florida (5), Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
Switching to 15m, Eric found a frequency to run, called "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted to POTA Spots. His only QSO on this band came at 1612 UTC with KU0X in Kansas.
Switching to 30m, Eric found a frequency to run, called "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted to POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1617 UTC with WS4S in Tennessee. QSOs came very quickly, with his eighth QSO in this run coming at 1625 with W2LJ in New Jersey. This run included QSOs with operators located in Tennessee (2), Rhode Island, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, and New Jersey.
In all, Eric logged forty-nine QSOs, with one P2P QSO, in just about seventy minutes of operating time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.
Dow Lake.
A sunken boat on Dow Lake.
Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for an operation at Strouds Run State Park, KFF-1994.
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