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 Saturday, April 19, 2025, 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 while participating in the POTA Support Your Parks, Spring event and the QRP to the Field (link) field operating event.
On beautiful but blustery Spring morning, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, performed his operation at Bulldog Shelter within Strouds Run State Park after bicycling from his office on the west side of Athens, Ohio.
"Welcome to Strouds Run State Park".
Eric's bicycle, loaded for POTA.
Arriving at Bulldog Shelter, located on the edge of Dow Lake and on this morning rich with the sounds of frogs calling and birds singing, Eric deployed his Tufteln 35' EFRW as a sloper up to the top of a Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast strapped vertically to his bicycle, placing three 17' counterpoise wires directly on the ground. Eric was on the air at 1413 UTC.
Eric's station.
As expected, Eric had cell-signal at Bulldog Shelter and he would be able to access POTA Spots to spot himself and to find Park-to-Park (P2P) QSO opportunities.
Wanting to start his operation as a bona fide QRP to the Field station, Eric didn't initially spot himself on POTA Spots. Starting on 20m, he found a clear frequency to run, and began calling "CQ TTF", and called, and called, and... nothing. After about ten minutes of calling, Eric noticed that, while his three 17' counterpoise wires were connected to the three-into-one adapter, the adapter wasn't connected to the antenna's transformer! Viewing this as a rather embarrassing teaching-moment that counterpoise wires are very important, Eric connected the adapter to the transformer, triggered his KX2 to auto-tune, and again began calling "CQ TTF". After a few minutes of calling with no responses, Eric spotted himself on POTA Spots. Not noticing that he had bumped his VFO knob while he was correcting the counterpoise issue, he had self-spotted himself on the wrong frequency! Once he dialed himself back to the frequency he had listed in his spot, he started calling "CQ POTA", and his first QSO came at 1430 UTC with WD5JTZ in Louisiana. QSOs came steadily, if rather slowly, with his eleventh QSO coming at 1454 UTC with WO4O in Florida. This run included a P2P QSO with K5BDH who was activating Sheldon Lake State Park (US-3056) in Texas, a P2P QSO with AC4JU who was activating River Lakes State Conservation Area (US-8369) in Florida, a P2P QSO with WO4O who was activating Ocklawaha Prairie Restoration Area State Conservation Area (US-8364) in Florida, a QSO with HA9RE in Hungary, and QSOs with operators located in Colorado, Florida (3), Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas (4).
Switching to 40m, Eric found himself a clear frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and self-spotted himself on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1500 UTC with NN4EC in Georgia. This was immediately followed by a QSO with Eric's good friend K4SWL in North Carolina. Eric's final QSO came at 1507 UTC with NO9G in Illinois. During the QSO with NO9G, an extremely strong gust of wind blew the Bulldog Shelter dumpster open with a very loud bang and blew Eric's bicycle-supported mast onto the ground. Taking this as a sign the wind was too fierce to continue, Eric ended his operation.
In all, Eric made fourteen QSOs, including three P2P QSOs, in seventy-three minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made at five watts output.
During his operation, Eric enjoyed listening to the frog calls and birdsong.
After taking some more photos and video, Eric packed his bicycle for his ride back to his car, hoping that the blustery winds wouldn't be too rough.
For QRP to the Field, Eric's calculated score was 237 points.
UPDATE: It turns out that QRP to the Field was actually to take place on April 26. However, the event organizer Paul, NA5N, announced he will count submissions for operations on the 19th due to communications-confusion over the event date. Operating on the wrong date might explain why Eric heard no one else operating QRPttF and why no one answered his calls of "CQ TTF".
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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