The Twin County (Carroll, Grayson and the City of Galax Virginia) packet node is located on Point Lookout Mountain, near Independence, Virginia. This mountain location is at a ground elevation of about 4550 feet above sea level with the B-2 Brute Antenna mounted at about 43 above ground. We are the guest of Grayson County Virginia at their public service repeater location.
The node is on V.H.F. (Two Meters) at a frequency of 145.730. The node equipment consist of a Yaesu FT-2800M transceiver with over 80 watts of output and the TNC is a Kantronics KPC-3 Plus with a "K-Net" chip for networking. The antenna is a B-2 Brute. The node address is PTLOND (W4GHS-3) .
The Nodes primary purpose is emergency communications and provides a path into the Virginia State E.O.C. in Richmond. It also has a connection to a full service bulletin board in Carroll County with a call of W1SLS. This board is for the posting and forwarding of messages for the local Ham population. The board forwards messages every 15 minutes through the VADEN system
If you need additional information on how to use this node, please contact Glen Sage, W4GHS at w4ghs@arrl.net and I would be glad to mail you detailed instructions.
To connect to the local BBS, do a C PTLOND , when you get the message that you are connected do a C W1SLS and the first time that you connect it will ask you for your name, then your city, then your zip code. You are then registered and whn you connect to the board it will tell you if you have messages. When you read your messages, it will ask you if you would like to reply, if you type "Y" for yes, your reply will be returned to the person that sent you the message.
The node address is PTLOND (W4GHS-3)
