POTA Activation - Strouds Run State Park, K-1994, March 18, 2024

On a very cold and windy March afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of Strouds Run State Park, K-1994, after returning to Athens, Ohio from Spring Break.

Josh arrived at the Bulldog Shelter around 2020 UTC and started to unpack his gear and find a good location to setup up under the shelter. He started to unpack his gear and found that the wire for the negative side on his battery had become disconnected from the ring terminal. Thankfully, he had brought his tool kit and he was able to crimp on a new ring terminal. Josh then began to start setting up his new Wolf River Coils 213" whip with a ground spike for mounting. It was then time to find some medium-size sticks to hold down the 3' by 7' piece of aluminum window screen, which would be used for the ground plane. After gathering the sticks and laying out the window screen, it was time to make a cable to attach the window screen to the ground spike. He started by cutting the wire in half and then stripping the ends, then he wrapped all 4 wires together and then started folding the wire back on itself, as the only 1/4" ring terminals he had were for 10-12 AWG sire. After the cable was made Josh connected it to the ground spike and window screen and then extended the whip fully. After putting it on the analyzer he found fantastic SWR of 1.5:1 or lower across the whole 20m band. He then retracted about 3-6" of the whip to get the lowest part of the dip around 14.29 MHz. Josh was finally on the air by 2057 UTC.

The trusty IC-718.

The new WRC 213" whip with ground spike and window screen.

Josh found a clear frequency (14.294 MHz), adjusted his output power to 65% which yielded about 50 watts of output power, spotted himself on the POTA website, and started calling "CQ Parks on the Air." Within a minute he was off making QSOs starting with KB0WLF in Missouri, followed up by K5UPR, a Park-to-Park contact from K-1076 in Arkansas immediately after. A few contacts later was another Park-to-Park station, NT5AT from K-3051 in Texas. Josh was on a rolling making several QSOs a minute until he reached N1ECT in Rhode Island, then his laptop died. It was a cold day, around 36 degrees, and he had neglected to charge his laptop after the previous activation. Josh told N1ECT to re-spot him as QRT and that he would be taking a 15 minute break to warm up and charge the laptop and then return to make more contacts. At this point he stood at 22 QSOs.

Then Josh took his water bottle, laptop, and HT into the car to warm up. Thankfully Josh has a small inverter in his car so he could charge up his laptop and warm up. He had also neglected to bring gloves as his good pair has been missing in action for a few months. After 15 minutes in the car and much warmer hands, Josh returned to the shelter, switched on the rig, and then starting calling "CQ" again. Another string of contacts one after another starting with K9JFB who gave Josh a 59 +10db signal report from Rhode Island. Several contacts later Josh heard "Charlie Tango" after calling CQ a few times, he asked the station to come back and it was CT2IEP from Portugal, Josh received a 52 signal report from him. After getting even more contacts, Josh heard "Eight Papa Six", then asked the station to come back. It was 8P6PE from Barbados who was also a Park-to-Park QSO from BB-0022 in Saint John. Josh finished his activation with K1CWB from Massachusetts, Josh had to start wrapping up because his laptop was about to die again and he didn't want it to be in the middle of a QSO, plus the wind was getting stronger and stronger as well as colder and colder. 

Overall, Josh made 53 QSOs, in only 32 minutes of operating time, his highest rate yet. All of his QSOs were SSB and were made with 50 watts of output power.