Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | POTA Activation Pokagon State Park + Potawatomi State Nature Preserve

by William Eric McFadden

From the Pokagon State Park website:

The park was originally called Lake James State Park when proposed to be the fifth Indiana State Park in 1925. The name was changed to Pokagon State Park to acknowledge the rich Native American heritage of the state and region. Leopold and Simon Pokagon were father and son and the last two most notable leaders of the Potawatomi. The park’s Potawatomi Inn takes its name from these Native Americans, who made their home in the area. The inn, with its up-north fishing lodge theme, is one of the Midwest’s most popular resorts and conference centers.

Being one of the state’s original parks, Pokagon features the unique work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose members lived and worked at Pokagon from 1934 to 1942. The "boys of the CCC" built the beautiful stone and log structures that dot the park landscape and provide accent to the rolling wooded hills, wetlands, and open meadows.

Natural lakes created by glaciers that melted 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, highlight Steuben County, which has more lakes than any other Indiana county. The park is framed by Lake James and Snow Lake, which offer abundant opportunities for boating, swimming, fishing, and scenic sunsets.

From the Potawatomi State Nature Preserve website:

Potawatomi occupies most of the southeastern and eastern portion of Pokagon State Park. Park trails 3 and 6 pass through the preserve.

A natural lake, cattail marshes, sedge meadows, tamarack and yellow birch swamps and adjoining uplands covered with hardwoods are features of this preserve. It is an outstanding example of the original landscape in the Northeastern Morainal Lake Region. Lake Lonidaw is nestled in a depression bordered by marsh vegetation and an adjoining tamarack-black ash swamp. Other wet places support not only tamarack and black ash, but also yellow birch and red maple. The higher morainal ridges support stands of red oak, white oak, wild black cherry, shagbark hickory, and sugar maple.

Pictures

Trail 3 into Powatatomi SNP: 1 | 2

Lake Lonidaw

The pier on Lake Lonidaw

Eric's station

Potawatomi Inn: front | back

Historic Gatehouse

Description

On Friday, March 14, 2025, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed successful simultaneous activations of Pokagon State Park (US-2264) and Patawatomi State Nature Preserve (US-12018) in Indiana as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

On the drive home from a two-day work conference in Chicago, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, performed an early morning two-fer activation of Pokagon (pronounced "poKAYgun") State Park and Potawatomi State Nature Preserve at the still-frozen Lake Lonidaw.

Eric had planned to arrive at Pokagon State Park early enough on the evening of the 13th to allow a hike into Potawatomi State Nature Preserve to perform the two-fer activation that same evening. However, slow traffic around Chicago and poor planning made for an after-midnight arrival time at the park, which meant no hike would happen on the 13th. Instead, Eric performed his operation on the morning of the 14th, while his wife Vickie caught up on her sleep.

On the morning of the 14th, Eric hiked the short distance on Trail 3 from the Potawatomi Inn parking lot to Lake Lodinaw within the Potawatomi State Nature Preserve and, finding a lovely (and unoccupied) pier extending out onto the lake, Eric chose to perform his operation on the pier. Eric deployed his Tufteln (info) 15' end-fed random wire 4:1 antenna as a vertical on his Goture Red Fox Super Hard 720 carbon-fiber mast bungied to his folding camp-chair, carefully laying the single counterpoise wire on the deck of the pier. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on the folding camp-chair's flip-up table, Eric was on the air at 1235 UTC.

Despite feeling that he was in the middle of nowehere, Eric had good cell-signal and would be able to spot himself on POTA Spots (link) and to use POTA Spots to identify possible park-to-park (P2P) QSO opportunities.

Hoping to working European stations, Eric began his operation on 20m. Finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ POTA" and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1248 UTC with KD5OZJ in Louisiana. QSO came steadily, with Eric's ninth QSO in this run coming at 1310 UTC with K1MLP in Massachusetts. This run was interrupted when the KX2's internal battery suddenly died, requiring Eric to quickly plug in his second battery as an external power source, and by the Goture mast suddenly collapsing in upon itself, perhaps from the the mast being warmed by the rising sun. This run included a P2P QSO with N4NR who was activating Curry Hammock State Park (US-1851) in Florida and QSOs with operators located in Connecticut, Florida (2), Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas (3).

Changing to 40m, Eric found a clear frequency to run, began calling "CQ POTA", and self-spotted himself on POTA Spots. Eric's first QSO in this run came at 1321 UTC with WA3TVH in Pennsylvania. QSOs came steadily, with Eric's tenth QSO in this run coming at 1332 UTC with W8AR in Ohio. This run included QSOs with operators located in Missouri, Ohio (2), Ontario, Pennsylvania (3), Tennessee (2), and Virginia.

In all, Eric made nineteen QSOs in just under an hour of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with five watts output.

Just after Eric tore down his station and was preparing for the short hike back to the Potawatomi Inn, he was surprised by the sight (and sound—a loud, rattling kar-r-r-o-o-o¹) of a pair of sandhill cranes flying over, something he's never experienced in southeastern Ohio. Nearing the end of Eric's hike back to the inn, frogs and toads were in full song.

Eric also submitted his log to the World Wide Flora and Fauna in Amateur Radio (WWFF; link) program for Pokagon State Park, KFF-2264.

Footnotes:

[1] the description, "a loud, rattling kar-r-r-o-o-o", taken from The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern Region, 1977.

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