POTA Activation - Pater State Wildlife Area, K-9492, March 9, 2024

On a very windy March afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, and Scott Senefeld conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of Pater State Wildlife Area, K-9492.

Josh and Scott arrived at the site around 1845 UTC. After showing Scott the site, Josh parked his car at the higher parking lot and deployed a Chameleon P-Loop 2.0 magnetic loop antenna that he had borrowed from the Ohio University Amateur Radio Club. Scott did most of the antenna assembly himself and then assisted Josh is tuning the antenna to a clear frequency on 20 meters. Josh set up his IC-718 out of the trunk of his car and was on the air at 1915 UTC.

The IC-718 right before packing up.

The P-Loop 2.0 Antenna

After the antenna was tuned, Josh spotted himself on the POTA website under the club callsign of KF8AJI. Josh began calling "CQ Parks on the Air" and made his first contact with KN4XP at 1920 UTC, a Park-to-Park QSO from South Carolina. After this first contact, they started lining up one after another, until 1927 UTC when QSOs started calming down. Then two stations came in booming at the same time, N4FJC and KC3LQD. Another period of calling CQ with no answer, until K4SGC, the South Georgia Contest Club responded to Josh's call at 1937 UTC, another Park-to-Park QSO.

Scott was up next after the contact with K4SGC, unfortunately, he was only able to make contact with KF0CGP at 1947 UTC, he was also a Park-to-Park QSO.

Overall, Josh made 16 QSOs and Scott made 1 QSO in 27 minutes of operating time. All of their QSOs were SSB and were made with 25 watts of output power.