I am grateful for all the comments and inputs.  Here is additional information and questions.  

1.  I think our local mesh was open for business in 2015.  There may have been activity before that, 
but I bought my first AREDN equipment in 2016.  I do not know how much mesh network design was done 
or what were planning parameters.  Several guys in a local club group bought equipment and started 
trying to communicate.  There were simulated EMCOMM activities for practice and network testing.  
Today there is not much activity.  There are few (at least what I think are few) rf stations 
visible in Mesh Status/Current Neighbors at any one time.  

2. Our operating is on 2.4 GHz, Ch -2, with 5 MHz bandwidth.  The Remote Nodes list of the one 
of our hubs with four Current Neighbor active tunnel links has 7 rf nodes with ETX < 3.8 in addition 
to 6 rf nodes in Current Neighbors list, all of which are blocked.  

3. Chuck (Reply #4) – Do tunnels and rf links have same effects on operation of the radios?  For 
example, if I have an rf node with four active rf links and four active tunnels, is that the same 
from a loading standpoint as eight active rf links??  

4. Chuck (Reply #5) – Hidden nodes.  In an AREDN network, is it necessary for all the nodes to be 
able to communicate with each other for the TDMA to work?  If an AREDN network has a star 
configuration with a central hub, will the packet transmitters eventually figure out when 
to transmit so as to not step on each other?  

5. Ed (Reply #8)– Regarding rf and dtd.  It was my understanding from the AREDN docs that LQM 
blocks the RF interface on any nodes to which a DtD link also exists.  Will rf and DtD links 
between the same two nodes still mess up the OSLR tables if that is true? 

6. Jim (Reply #7) - I have attempted to attach a graphic showing the location of the hubs.  
The two hubs marked  A  have three 120-deg sector antennas with Rocket radios on structures 
about 200 ft AGL.  The hub near the NW corner of the map may be inoperative at the moment.  
The two hubs marked  B  are Rockets with omni antennas on water towers about 150 ft AGL.  
The one marked  C  is a Rocket/omni about 150 ft above neighboring terrain.  I think the tower 
is taller than 150 ft, but is in a low area.  The two heavy black bars illustrate 2.0 miles 
horizontally and vertically.  There are some tall buildings and there 
are topographic variations that may impact any particular path.  Our generally flat land and 
trees are problematic for rf links.  

7. The best rf connection we have from a house to a hub is a physical line-of-sight path from a short 
tower on a roof to one of the water tower hubs about a  mile away.  That hub’s Current Neighbor 
list is one (tunnel, wan, active), one (rf, active) with SNR of 44/52  and Quality of 80%, and 
one (rf, blocked retries). A link to the other water tower hub failed during the day.  
Is 3-4 Current Neighbors the max that one node can be expected to support?