POTA Activation - Strouds Run State Park, US-1994, March 30, 2024

On an warm March afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of Strouds Run State Park, US-1994.

Josh arrived to Strouds Run and found all of his previous activation sites occupied,  including the one from 29-March-2024, so he decided to check out the campground to see if there was an empty site away from others. Josh found site #4 to be ideal and started to unpack his car at 2020 UTC. After unpacking his car, Josh took out his ground spike and found a good spot for his Wolf River Coils 213" whip. As this was another new site at Strouds Run, he had to find a good spot to setup his antenna to be away from himself, he found the back of the campsite to have enough space for his ground network. After choosing his spot, Josh attached the antenna to the ground spike, setup the window screen, and used his sticks to hold the screen down. Another staple of Josh's activations include retracting about 6" of the whip, then he attached the window screen to the short end of the window screen, then attached the coax to his radio. Josh was on the air by 2035 UTC.

Josh's setup.

The WRC 213" whip.

It was hard for Josh to find a clear frequency due to the CQ World-Wide WPX Single Sideband contest going on, however Josh managed to slip in at 14.335 MHz and started calling CQ at 2035, his first contact was with K0IEX, a Park-to-Park QSO from US-9387 in Minnesota at 2038 UTC, then came KQ4IVB from Florida, followed up by KB5RVX in Oklahoma. Then Josh realized that another Parks on the Air station had also started calling CQ on Josh's frequency, instead of fighting the other station, Josh decided to retune his antenna and jump on 17 meters. He was able to make 4 17 meter contacts, first with KB0TUW from Montana at 2048 UTC, then N4SFC in Florida, who Josh thought had called him on 20 meters, but realized that he was calling the other station who was using the frequency. His last two came from K5ERY at 2052 UTC and N8PEP at 2053 UTC, in Texas and Florida respectively.

Then out of curiosity, Josh changed bands on his IC-718 to 20 meters and noticed that his previous frequency 14.335 MHz had become free again, he quickly extended his antenna and then checked to make sure the frequency was clear, then started calling CQ, immediately he got two Park-to-Park QSOs with AE0XN in US-1213 in Colorado at 2105 UTC and then KO4UTH in US-1923 in Florida at 2106 UTC. His tenth contact of the activation came from N0DRX in Minnesota to finally make Josh's afternoon an activation. Then he was on a role until the calls stoped coming. Josh decided to try out 40 meters and attached his Sporty Forty coil and found 7.246 to be clear, however the band was noisy. Josh only managed to get one QSO on 40 meters, a Park-to-Park QSO from KD9VSU in US-4234 in Indiana at 2125.

Overall, Josh made 21 QSOs, 4 of them being Park-to-Park, in 48 minutes of operating time. All of his QSOs were SSB and were made with 50 watts of output power.