POTA Activation - Wallace H. O'Dowd State Wildlife Area, US-9514, April 26, 2024

On a warm April afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of the Wallace H. O'Dowd State Wildlife Area, US-9514, his forth and last stop on his hunt to complete the POTA Rover Warthog Award for activating 5 Parks on the Air references in a single UTC day.

Josh arrived at 1615 UTC to area marked as the "Trimble Township Community Forest" on Google Maps, however, it is a marked parking area on the map of the wildlife area from the Ohio DNR. There was a gate that lead back into the forested area, however it was closed so Josh parked next to it and began to setup his antenna and get his station ready again. This time around, Josh decided to not continue to operate on the 40 meter band, so he left the Wolf River Coil Sporty Forty coil off of the antenna and tuned it to resonance on the 20 meter band. His station consisted of his Icom IC-718, Wolf River Coils 213” vertical whip with a window screen ground plane and Sporty Forty coil, all mounted on a ground spike, and fed with 25’ of RG-8X coax. Josh decided to also continue to use the newest version of the HAMRS logging application (v 1.0.7) on his Evolve III laptop. He was on the air by 1622 UTC.

The sign outside of the small parking area.

Josh's car parked in the small pull off.

Josh had to find a new frequency since he was now operating on the 20 meter band, but he found 14.283 MHz to be clear so he spotting himself of the POTA website and started calling CQ. Josh found the 20 meter band conditions to be particular unpleasant during his first QSO with W4WEW from Florida at 1624 UTC, both stations exchanged a 44 signal report to each other. His next QSO didn't come until 1627 with W0OR from Minnesota, this contact was noticeably louder and Josh began to notice some bad QSB (fading) on the band. At 1633 UTC, Josh got a call from NT5AT, who was a Park-to-Park station from US-4423 in Texas, both operators exchanged 44 signal reports. After about 10 minutes with no contacts, Josh decided to re-attach the Sport Forty coil and went back to 7.224 MHz and started calling CQ at 1641 after re-spotting himself. His first 40 meter QSO would come from W0CGC in Tennessee at 1642, marking their third QSO of the day, both exchanged 59 signal reports. Then stations got a little bit weaker when N3APC and KX4YQ called at 1643 UTC, around 54 signal reports were exchanged. Then silence until 1651 when K2CRV called from New York, they exchanged 57 signal reports. Thankfully, K9DEG was right behind him at 1652 UTC, Josh gave him a 33 and Josh received a 55 signal report.

After several minutes of calling CQ with no answer, Josh decided to hunt two Park-to-Park QSOs from the POTA spotting page to get him to his required 10 contacts for an activation. Josh then made contact with N4TRD from US-3880 in South Carolina after 3-5 attempts of calling him with no reply, Josh started to think his IC-718 might have been acting up, but he knew deep down it was just the band conditions. His last QSO of the activation was with KB2TDT from US-2096 in New York.

Overall, Josh made 10 QSOs, 3 of them being Park-to-Park, in 38 minutes of operating time. All his QSOs were single-sideband and made with 50 watts of output power. 

The band conditions for the day.