POTA Activation - Mammoth Cave National Park, K-0050, and The Green National Wild and Scenic River, K-10105, March 12, 2024

On a summer March afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, and Scott Senefeld conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of Mammoth Cave National Park, K-0050, and The Green National Wild and Scenic River, K-10105, while on a spring break vacation to Mammoth Cave National park. They were joined by Ann, their trusty driver, who enjoyed soaking up the sun while crocheting.

They arrived at the Dennison Ferry Picnic Area around 1905 UTC and found a suitable site right next to the gravel road that had a nice picnic table as well as a bench next to it. Ann parked the car and Josh and Scott started to carry their gear over to the picnic table. Josh started to get up the IC-718 setup while Scott deployed the Chameleon P-Loop 2.0 magnetic loop antenna that Josh brought on the trip from the Ohio University Amateur Radio Club. After putting the analyzer on it they found that it was still tuned where they wanted it, close to 14.285 MHz. They were on the air by 1915 UTC.

The IC-718 setup with the logging computer.

The activation site.

The Green River from behind the picnic bench.

This site had no cell service so Josh was not able to spot himself on the POTA website. He found a clear frequency and just started calling "CQ Parks on the Air" it turned out to be an exercise in futility as no stations responded to his call. He then decided to start looking for Park-to-Park contacts, a strategy that he had used the day before in order to successfully activate My Old Kentucky Home State Park, K-1267. Josh was finally able to make his first Park-to-Park QSO with KA4PJZ at 1921 UTC, a Park-to-Park QSO from Florida. After this first contact, Josh kept spinning the dial and found KC3KXR from New Jersey, then KC3SEG in Maryland who was at two parks! Then Josh found K4GDJ in Florida for his fifth Park-to-Park contact. Josh decided that he'd try calling CQ once again, and this time he was successful, he got two stations at the same time, KA4KOE/P and KO4HNB/M at 2000 UTC and 2001 UTC respectively. 

Then Josh kept spinning the dial up and down the lower portion of 20 meters (General SSB portion that is) to try and find just 3 more contacts in order to activate both the park and the river. He was successful in making those 3 more Park-to-Park QSOs, and even one a dual-op activator pair, KC3KAY and K3NOP in Pennsylvania at 2013 UTC, and finally AD9BL in Florida at 2015 UTC to officially make the afternoon an activation. All of the contacts Josh made he received very quiet signal reports and really had to fight against people running barefoot or QRO and he missed out on a few contacts because they were just so loud. For one contact, a nice VE station heard Josh saying "Park-to-Park" during a pileup and kindly told the activator that he heard a Park-to-Park down in the noise. 

Overall, Josh made 10 QSOs, all Park-to-Park, in 54 minutes of operating time. All of his QSOs were SSB and were made with 25 watts of output power.