On the drive to Four Days in May and the Xenia Hamvention, I veered off through Northern Ohio for a couple SOTA stops. The first peak on the list was Ashland County’s high point, which is just off the side of state route 511 in Vermilion, OH. The nearby Vermilion Baptist Church’s parking lot is in the activation zone, as reported by Ward WC0Y, who sadly went SK this year after a battle with cancer. Ward was a regular activator of summits in the midwest and had shared a ton of useful beta on SOTA in the region.
Being a Wednesday morning, nobody was around. I was testing my newly tuned 20/30/40 trapped EFHW antenna paired with the red MTR4b, but the bands had other plans. An X-class solar flare, the strongest of this calendar year so far, had erupted about 6 hours before this activation. 20m was rough, but I managed to make 5 QSOs, including Josh WU7H in Washington, who made a heroic number of repeats as we rode some wild QSB. 30 and 40 rounded off the slow activation, ending with 12 contacts total.
Next up was W8O/NE-001 Noblet Benchmark on an apple orchard in Richland County, about a 30 minute drive away.
- “Trailhead”: 40.73366, -82.31873 : Vermilion Baptist Church parking lot
- Map: [AA3TZ SOTA]
- Route: Drive-on
- POTA: None
Tom Zajdel 
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