POTA Activation - Strouds Run State Park, US-1994, May 27, 2024

On a warm and sunny May afternoon, Josh Senefeld, N8VXR, conducted a successful Parks on the Air activation of Strouds Run State Park, US-1994. This was Josh's 17th activation of the park on his hunt to complete the Oasis Repeat Offender Awards for 20 activations from the same Parks on the Air entity. Josh has also been hunting for the Kilo Award for making 1000 QSOs from the same Parks on the Air Entity.

Prior to this activation, Josh had 16 successful activations of Strouds Run with 750 QSOs, after this activation he now has 17 activations with 793 QSOs.

Josh arrived to Strouds Run and headed to his usual spot, the picnic tables by the swim beach area. The park seemed to be bustling with cars, however, this spot was completely empty of people. However, after a drive around Dow Lake after his activation, Josh found where all the crowds were. He arrived to the site around 1717 UTC and began to setup his station consisting of his Icom IC-718 (now with a new screen!), Wolf River Coils 213” vertical whip with a window screen ground plane, all mounted on a ground spike, and fed with 25’ of RG-8X coax. He was on the air by 1729 UTC.

Josh's gear packed up before leaving.

His antenna.

Dow Lake from the south loop of State Park Rd.

View of the surrounding hills.

Josh found his cell signal to be weaker than normal at the site so he found a clear frequency of 14.275 and spotted himself using the APSPOT SMS spotting tool as he did in fact have cell service, however, the POTA.app website didn't want to fully load. Almost as soon as his spot got posted, he got his first contact, which also happened to be a Park-to-Park, with WB5OTR from US-1029 in Arkansas at 1729 UTC. Josh's next contact t with K1EAF from Maine came right after his first at 1730 UTC. Then after a couple more calls, his third contact was made with W4MPX from Florida. Another Park-to-Park contact followed with KF0DNS from US-2306 in Iowa at 1733 UTC. Josh then had a little run of stations calling him one after another before he got his first and only Canadian contact of the day with VE9CZ at 1735.

About 10 minutes later, Josh made his first ever maritime mobile contact with KN4EQG who was off of the Atlantic coast of the United States. A few more Park-to-Parks followed shortly after, those being K7JSG from US-11166 in Utah at 1749 and N5VJX from US-11376 in Alabama at 1750 UTC. A few minutes later he scored another Park-to-Park, this time with WZ5V from US-3675 in Oklahoma at 1754 UTC. Josh then got a call from KQ4RSO/AG from Florida, who he promptly congratulated for earning his General class license! Josh's second to last Park-to-Park was with another new General class operator, KI5ZRT/AG from US-3050 in Texas at 1812 UTC.

Josh then moved down to the 40 meter band as the time between contacts was getting spread out. He found 7.244 to be clear, respotted himself and almost immediately got his first contact with KD9MQV from Tennessee at 1816 UTC. Josh had a little pileup going before he found his last Park-to-Park contact with N3APC from US-1418 in Pennsylvania at 1820 UTC. His second to last QSO of the afternoon was with Kate, KB3URV who is actually another Athens local! 

Overall, Josh made 43 QSOs, 7 of them being Park-to-Park, in 56 minutes of operating time. All his QSOs were single-sideband and made with 50 watts of output power.