From the Griffith Woods Wildlife Management Area website:

The area has a long history of human occupation and agricultural use. The property consists of various cover types ranging from agriculture, old field, pasture, and woodland including a unique open woodland composed of chinquapin oaks, burr oaks, and blue ash that are 150-350 years old. This open woodland habitat is representative of a blue ash-oak savanna-woodland community type thought to have occupied the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky around the time of European settlement.

Pictures

• The SNP sign and Eric's station
• Eric's station: 1 | 2
• An impressive tree

Description

On Tuesday, March 24, 2026, one member of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team performed a successful activation of Griffith Woods Wildlife Management Area (US-3813) in Kentucky as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA; link) program.

While driving to Georgetown, Kentucky, for a family funeral, and following a successful activation of Quiet Trails State Nature Preserve, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, stopped at the wildlife management area to perform the activation. Eric was accompanied by his wife, Vickie, and their small dog, Theo.

Upon arrival at the wildlife management area, Eric checked out the WMA's two parking areas on US-62 and chose to set up his station at the parking area on the north-west side of the highway, this parking area being more level and having fewer overhanging trees. After placing his car in an out-of-the-way place within the parking area, Eric deployed a Tufteln (link) EFRW as a 29' vertical on a Jackite 31' telescoping fiberglass mast supported in a drive-on base, and placed two 17' counterpoise wires directly on the gravel. Placing his Elecraft KX2 on his folding camp-chair's flip-up table, Eric was on the air at 1954 UTC.

The park sign and Eric's station.



Eric's station—and Theo-dog.

Eric was pleased to find that he had cell-signal at this location, and that he would be able to spot himself on the POTA Spots website (link) and be able to use POTA Spots to identify possible Park-to-Park (P2P) QSOs.

Eric began his operation on 20m. While trying to finding himself a clear frequency to run, he found WQ0A calling "CQ POTA" but Eric wasn't able to break his pileup.

After finding himself a clear frequency to run, Eric began calling "CQ FYBO" and was auto-spotted on POTA Spots. His first QSO came at 1957 UTC with VE9BER in New Brunswick. QSOs came quickly, with his tenth QSO and a validated activation coming at 2007 UTC, and with his thirteenth QSO coming at 2010 UTC with AA4NO in North Carolina. This run included a P2P QSO with NQ1F at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (US-0321) in Massachusetts and QSOs with operators located in Arkansas, Florida (4), Iowa, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New Jersey (2), North Carolina, Ontario, and Texas.

Eric finished his operation by hunting for P2P QSOs, and at 2014 UTC he succeeded in making a P2P QSO on 20m with WQ0A at Clinton State Park (US-2332) in Kansas. WQ0A being the station Eric had tried to hunt at the start of his operation, having successfully worked him at the end of the operation allowed WQ0A to serve as nice "bookends" to Eric's operation.

Following his final QSO, Eric took some photos, tore down his station, and re-packed the car before continuing the drive to Georgetown.

An impressive tree in the WMA.

In all, Eric completed fourteen QSOs in twenty minutes of on-air time. All of Eric's QSOs were CW and were made with a power output of five watts.

(return)

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