Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Strouds Run State Park

On Friday, March 29, 2024, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful bicycle-portable activation of Strouds Run State Park (US-1994) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

On a warm but blustery afternoon, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, bicycled with his KX2 Mini Travel Kit from West State Street Park in Athens to Bulldog Shelter within Strouds Run State Park to perform his 97th 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 began his ride at West Street Park at 1936 UTC and arrived at Bulldog Shelter at 2005 UTC to find the picnic shelter to be unoccupied except for a young woman, her guitar, and her lovely black dog.

After asking the young woman for her permission to join her at the shelter, Eric set up his Elecraft KX2 transceiver on a sunny picnic table within the shelter, bungied his Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast vertically to his bicycle, sloped the Tufteln (link) 35' EFRW antenna from the KX2 up to top of the mast, and deployed three 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground. Eric was on the air at 2016 UTC.

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 20m by finding a frequency to run, calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted to POTA Spots. His first QSO came almost immediately at 2017 UTC with K1NEO in Maine. It was at this point that Eric noticed that he had forgotten his logging clipboard in his bicycle's pannier, and that the gusty wind had already knocked his wire antenna partially down. Pausing after his first QSO, Eric rushed to his bicycle to fix his antenna and grab the logging clipboard. After calling "CQ POTA" again just once, Eric's second QSO came at 2019 UTC with NY4FD in Florida. The increasingly gusty wind continued to threaten his antenna but the antenna remained up, and QSOs came quickly, with his sixteenth QSO coming at 2034 UTC with KB4CO in Tennessee. This run included a QSO with SM3NRY in Sweden and QSOs with operators located in Maine (2), Florida (5), Tennessee (2), Mississippi, Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

During his run on 20m, Eric realized the LabTec headphones he was wearing were absolute rubbish at keeping out external noise, and CW copy was at times difficult due to the roar of the gusty wind and the sound of traffic on the nearby road. If truth be told, the guitar being played by the young woman also hindered his CW copy, but at least the guitar was being played well and the music was pleasant to hear.

Because of the increasingly gusty wind, and because it was very nearly afternoon drive-time and Eric had hoped to avoid most of the car and truck traffic on his ride back to West State Street Park, Eric decided against trying for QSOs on additional bands. After taking some photos, he tore down his station, repacked his bicycle, and began his return ride at 1851 UTC. During this ride, it became increasingly apparent to Eric that his front shifter was failing, so he detoured to the Cycle Path bicycle shop only to find it had already closed for the day.

In all, Eric logged sixteen QSOs in just about twenty minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.

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.