I was packing in a quick sunrise SOTA activation near the Summit County high point (W8O/NE-007) in Richfield, OH, the morning after my friend James’ wedding in Cleveland. (Aside: James accompanied me on the first activation of Maguire Peaks back in 2016!) This one is an easy drive-on SOTA with plenty of places to set up in Richfield Woods Park which is totally within the activation zone.
The chasers were mostly asleep, but things picked up near the end with a mini-roundup on 40m from the Skyview Radio Society, the radio club near Pittsburgh that I belong to: K3MJW, Marty AG3I, W3GH, and Cooky WC3O in quick succession. They club was kindly taking a short break from the CQ RTTY contest to work me. I also worked some nice DX on the high bands: F4WBN, MI0SRR, and PA5KM on 15m; DL1DVE on 17m.
I was set up near one of the baseball fields. I usually have bad luck near the baseball diamond — bat to the face in baseball camp, hard grounder bounced to the eye playing in a softball league (two black eyes for the price of one…), etc. — so this was a nice change of pace. With this activation in the books, I have activated 4 out of 9 of the peaks in the W8O/NE SOTA region. The rest are on private property, with the exception of W8O/NE-009 Taylors Hill near Toronto, OH. That land was recently acquired by Hike Toronto, and should be open for hikers soon, if it isn’t already.
- Trailhead: 41.24300, -81.66012 : Richfield Woods Park
- Map: [AA3TZ SOTA]
- Route: Drive on, walk a few dozen feet to a park bench near the big baseball diamond.
- POTA: None.
Tom Zajdel 