Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Strouds Run State Park + Peanut Power Sprint

On the evening of October 6, 2024, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team took advantage of beautiful weather to perform a successful activation of Strouds Run State Park (US-1994) as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program while simultaneously participating in the North Georgia QRP Club's "Peanut Power Sprint" field contest (info) as Peanut #124.

Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, got a late start and arrived at the unoccupied Lakeview Shelter within Strouds Run State Park about half an hour into the two-hour Peanut Power Sprint period. Eric was joined by his small dog Theo, his daughter Kate, and his young grandson and Kate's son Archer.

Eric quickly deployed his Tufteln (link) 35' end-fed random wire antenna as a sloper suspended on his Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast only to discover that the counterpoise connection-point had broken off of the antenna's matching unit. Disappointed but not dismayed, Eric dropped the 35' EFRW and quickly deployed his emergency-backupp 28½' speaker-wire vertical as a sloper, laying the three 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground, and was on the air at 2242 UTC. (Eric realized belatedly he could have saved time by swapping out the damaged matching unit for his binding-post adapter and continued to use the Tufteln 35' radiator and three 17' counterpoise wires.)

Eric had good cell-signal and would be able to spot himself on the POTA Spots website and to use POTA Spots to identify possible Park-to-Park (P2P) QSOs.

Wanting to start his operation on 20m, Eric was frustrated to find that the best match his KX2's internal ATU could find on that band for the 28½' wire was worse than 3:1. Switching to 40m, he was pleased to find his KX2 quickly found a good match. (Eric uses a 4:1 unun with the similar antenna he carries with his KX3; perhaps he needs to make a small 4:1 unun to carry with his KX2.)

Eric had planned to operate this event as a straight Peanut Power Sprint operation and hadn't announced his operation on POTA Spots. After finding a clear frequency near the 40m QRP calling frequency, he began calling "CQ NUT" to indicate his participation in the contest but several minutes of calling produced no QSOs. Becoming concerned he wouldn't make the ten QSOs required to validate his POTA activation before the end of the UTC day, Eric spotted himself on POTA Spots but continued calling "CQ NUT".

Eric's first QSO came at 2244 UTC with N5FY, the proprietor of Tufteln, in Georgia. Fading was heavy on the band, and Eric learned later that there were several interfering signals on the frequency that he had been completely unable to hear. Nevertheless, QSOs came quickly, with Eric's twenty-seventh QSO coming at 2324 UTC with KF0GE in Missouri. This run included a P2P QSO with KE9BHN at Volo Bog State Natural Area (US-4160) in Illinois, QSOs with AC8RG in Ohio and WB9HFK in Illinois who sent the complete Peanut Power Sprint exchange, and QSOs with operators located in Georgia (2), North Dakota, Tennessee, Indiana (2), Louisiana, Illinois (2), South Carolina, Maine, Ontario (2), Virginia (2), Ohio, Michigan (3), Massachusetts (3), Kentucky, Delaware, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Missouri.

In all, Eric logged twenty-seven QSOs, with two of these being with operators sending the complete Peanut Power Sprint exchange. 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 activation of Strouds Run State Park, KFF-1994.

With two Peanut Number QSOs, twenty-five QSOs with operators without Peanut Numbers, and 18 S/P/Cs on 40m, Eric's calculated score in Peanut Power Sprint was 1,602 points.