ADRO node - north-west Chapel Hill

This node is located near i40 and NC86, in the old town of Blackwood NC, between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.

The ADRO node is on a hill and has 20 mile range in most directions on VHF. The site has many trees from which to hang antennas. The first antenna at the site is a Comet GP-15 omni at 78' up, hung by rope from a tree in . A vertical folded dipole at 20' is also in use

In early 2015 We have tried links from ADRO to SNELL on 6m and ADRO to TADD on 2m. Both were close to working but were not reliable. As of this writing, February 28, 2015, the 6m link from ADRO to SNELL is weak in the north-bound direction. SNELL is using a 100 watt Midland commercial mobile radio. ADRO is using a 35 watt Vertex commercial mobile radio. The plan is to replace both radios with Kenwood TK630 100 watt mobiles.

The 440 and 2m radios will provide relatively short range links to south Durham and to Hillsborough for at least the next few months. Eventually we'll probably add another antenna for 440 and 2m and move the short range links to that antenna. The 78' high antenna will then be used for longer distance links on those two bands.

The day we pulled the Comet GP-15 up to 78' I was heard by KB4QQJ in Burlington and KE4VNC in Wendel. I was talking to KE4VNC on the 145.19 repeater in Raleigh using the Kenwood TK760 radio at the site on that GP-15.
KE4VNC reported my signal via the repeater and KB4QQJ later gave me his report. I hadn't actually gotten on 2m to do DX. I was just doing a reality check to see that the antenna was working at all. I guess it was!

Scott, KB1FFX, was able to work the 440 port on the ADRO node using a 10watt radio and a home-made copper J-pole from his place in Cary. That's not bad for 440! The plan, however, is that Scott's link is only 2 miles on 440 over to Jeff KK4QMB, and we'll use the 440 radio at ADRO to talk to N6LUZ:SKIP.

To the west we looked to see if W4VU in Burlington could work ADRO directly. W4VU's site and antenna complement isn't quite that KB4QQJ's is. Dave tried home-brewing a new 2m antenna and doing crazy things with trees to try to get a good signal. He eventually decided that he couldn't make it solid enough to work through the trees during the summer. Our plan is to do a short range link on 2m to Wilson, W4BOH in Hillsborough using ADRO's 2m radio.
Dave will see if he can find a mid-site in Mebane to link to Wilson and to his house. Think of it as an excuse to get more people involved in the network. Eventually we might get a link from ADRO that goes further to the west but in the mean time we'll do short hops and gain reliability at the expense of latency and simplicity.

ADRO node is sponsored by Adriano - KV7D and Tadd - KA2DEW. Installation of the equipment was aided by Adriano with his fantastic aim with a crossbow, and Nathan - KM4DVE, offering muscle, brains, and moral support to the outfit.

--- KA2DEW Feb 28, 2015