A SEDAN Node in Zebulon, NC

BULLETIN! Much new work being done at the Zebulon site. Click =>HERE<= to see it as it materializes!

This is one of area's SEDAN nodes, located in Zebulon NC. It's SSID is K4RTP-8, and alias is ZEBNC. It currently consists of a Realistic HTX-202 running about 5 watts into a 35 watt VHF power amplifier, and a Kantronics KPC-3 TNC. The TNC uses the latest K-node firmware. The SEDAN system is full time battery powered. It first began life as the KQ4MS-3 APRS node, and ran for several years, until a wide-area APRS node was installed by KD4PBS. At that time, it was decided that the node would better serve the area as a new SEDAN node, to help promote SEDAN activity in the triangle area of NC.

K4RTP-8 occupies part of the 5CRG Cabinet in Zebulon, as seen on the left. The bank of brown cavities, installed horizontally on the upper shelf, are used to combine the 145.77 mhz signal from this node with the 147.54 mhz signal of a BBS node in the same cabinet. Both nodes use the same antenna, and even shared the feedline with a voice repeater on 442.400 mhz for some time (until a separate VHF antenna was installed)!

The node's primary antenna is a 4 bay folded dipole array, shared with the BBS node. It's fed through about 200' of 1 5/8" Andrews heliax. Zebulon is about 300 feet above sea level, and has a pretty good radio path to southeast. Note the custom "top-hat", designed by Steve KD4WIW, on the tower to support up to 4 antennas.

This Node's primary coverage area is Eastern Wake, Southern Franklin, Western Wilson, Nash, and most of Johnston county. It provides a coverage radius of about 30 miles in all directions with considerably more range to the S.E. through the S.W.