Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Strouds Run State Park

On Sunday, May 31, 2026, 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.

Taking advantage of a beautiful morning, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, performed a bicycle-portable POTA activation of Strouds Run State Park, bicycling from his office on the west side of Athens to Bulldog Shelter within the state park.

Eric started his ride at 1510 UTC and arrived twenty-seven minutes later to find Bulldog Shelter to be unoccupied. The two families of geese he had seen on the 29th were floating on Dow Lake, nearby, and the barn swallows were still in Bulldog Shelter but they didn't seem to be very dissatisfied this time.

Eric chose his regular picnic table and quickly deployed his KH1 Micro Travel Kit's 35' ad hoc end-fed random wire antenna as a sloper to the top of his Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast bungied vertically to his bicycle, placing a single 13' counterpoise wire directly on the concrete floor of the picnic shelter. Placing his Elecraft KH1 on the table in "picnic table" mode, and hooking up his Whiterook MK-33 paddle and Sony earbuds, Eric was on the air at 1554 UTC.

Cell-signal at the site was weaker than Eric would have hoped, but he had enough signal to text his friends Tom (K4SWL) and Mike (K8RAT) for spotting support, and the POTA Spots (link) page managed to refresh occasionally.

Because this was CQ World Wide Work All Prefixes CW contest (CQWW WPX CW) weekend, Eric expected 20m to be a madhouse, so he started his operation on 40m. After finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1558 UTC with K9VIC operating as N9ANA at Silver Springs State Park (US-1024) in Illinois. His second QSO came at 1559 UTC with KK4UZK in Virginia. Thereafter, responses to his calls just stopped. Eric text his frequency to Tom and Mike, and at 1605 UTC he was able to complete a QSO with Tom. During this run, both of the geese families came ashore, and Eric snapped some photos.

The goose family with the older goslings.
(Eric is learning that using digital zoom on his
phone really doesn't produce very pretty images...)

The goose family with the younger gosling. If
this is the same family Eric saw on the 29th, and
he thinks it is, then they've lost a gosling since then.

Giving up on 40m as a lost cause, Eric switched to 20m and selected a clear frequency way up in the CW portion of the band, began calling "CQ POTA", and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO in this run came at 1613 UTC with KM4QNA in Alabama. This was followed at 1618 UTC by a QSO with NS1C in Florida. After this QSO, Eric's phone lost its internet connection and Eric texted to Tom and Mike a request to be respotted on the 20m frequency, but Tom reported that Eric's spot had been auto-refreshed from the Reverse Beacon Network. QSOs in this run came slowly, with Eric's seventh QSO in this run, and his tenth QSO overall, coming at 1632 UTC with N5ITG in Oklahoma. This run included QSOs with operators located in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and South Carolina (2).

By this point, Eric's phone again had an internet connection, and he tried to hunt park-to-park (P2P) QSOs, but met with no success. Having already successfully validated his activation by making ten QSOs, Eric could have ended his operation, but he decided, instead, to try to work some of the CQWW WPX CW contesters. Starting at the very bottom of the 20m band, Eric slowly worked his way up the band and successfully worked four stations in pretty quick succession:

Having been on the air for just over an hour, Eric finished his operation with fourteen QSOs and one known P2P QSO. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with 5w or less of output power.

Eric snapped some more photos, tore down his station, re-packed his bicycle, and began his ride back to his car at his office.

A view of Dow Lake, looking north.

A view of Dow Lake, looking south, with bonus kayakers.

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.