HABITAT MANAGEMENT
HABITAT MANAGEMENT Design Features of NCWRC’s Motus Stations in Western North Carolina by Christine Kelly, Wildlife Diversity Biologist T he big gap in Motus coverage in the Southern Appalachians is being filled quickly with new receiver stations. The Mountain Wildlife Diversity crew installed its third Motus receiver station in February 2024 and its fourth station in April 2024. Each station entailed designing an installation customized to each site’s limitations and infrastructure. The team found that learning about details of other Motus partners’ installations was helpful. This report provides a brief summary of design elements for NCWRC’s four mountain region Motus stations.
CHRIS KELLY/NCWRC
CHRIS KELLY/NCWRC
The Pond Mountain Motus Station in Ashe Co, NC. Antennas are mounted on a wood utility pole and the station’s battery is charged by a solar panel. The receiver box and battery are housed inside this old airplane hangar.
The Mud Creek Motus Station is co-lo- cated on a platform with NCWRC Mus- kellunge (fish) tracking equipment the hangar by NCWRC’s Land and Water Access Division staff. This is a quiet, long-range station that has sweeping views of Grandfather Moun- tain to the southeast and Whitetop Mountain, VA to the north. It is sub- ject to extreme cold, wind, and ice. A
The Pond Mountain Game Land Motus Station, located in the very northwest corner of the state, was operational by mid-April 2023. This is an off-the-grid dual-mode station, meaning there is no AC power, and the antennas are tuned to detect tags
on both 166 MHz and 434 MHz fre- quencies. An old airplane hangar on-site houses the electronics but was not used for mounting antennas due to potential interference from the metal roof material. Instead, a wood utility pole was installed adjacent to
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71 2024 Wildlife Diversity Program Annual Report
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