POTA Activation - My Old Kentucky Home State Park, K-1267, March 11, 2024

On a warm March afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, and Scott Senefeld conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of My Old Kentucky Home State Park, K-1267, while headed to Mammoth Cave National Park in southwestern Kentucky for a spring break vacation. They were joined by Ann, their trusty driver.

They arrived at the site around 1820 UTC at suitable site near some tennis courts that Josh had scoped out earlier on Google Maps. Ann parked the car at the site and Scott began to deploy the Chameleon P-Loop 2.0 magnetic loop antenna that Josh had borrowed from the Ohio University Amateur Radio Club. Scott was proficient at setting the antenna up at this point and after putting the analyzer on it they found that it was already tuned where they wanted it, close to 14.27 MHz. While Scott was setting up the antenna Josh set up his IC-718 in the back of the car and they chose to stand during their time on the air to stretch their legs from the hour and a half car ride to get to Bardstown, Kentucky. They were on the air by 1835 UTC.

The trusty IC-718, except for the VFO.

The P-Loop 2.0 setup on a nice flat surface.

Josh spotted the pair on the POTA website under the club callsign of KF8AJI. Josh began calling "CQ Parks on the Air" and was unsuccessful in making a contact after calling for several minutes. He then decided to start looking for stations to make Park-to-Park contacts with that were also around the 14.27 MHz range. Josh was able to make his first contact with K1MCO at 1842 UTC, a Park-to-Park QSO from Florida. After this first contact, Josh decided to start calling CQ once again, this time he made contact with K3GGM from Maryland. Then crickets once again. Josh decided that he'd mark their spot as QRT and they'd get the rest of their contacts as Park-to-Parks. Then began the processes of going up and down the band for the next 40 minutes and Josh was successfully able to make 9 more Park-to-Park QSOs, most with incredibly quiet signal reports as they were running lower power and were also in a higher noise level environment.

Scott was also able to get the mic in his hands for the last QSO with K1KL, he was also a Park-to-Park QSO, this time from New Hampshire.

Overall, Josh made 11 QSOs and Scott made 1 QSO in 51 minutes of operating time. All of their QSOs were SSB and were made with 25 watts of output power.