the Albany, Schnectady, Troy and surrounding area was located at this site in West

Grafton, New York. The site was "decomissioned" from packet use in March of '97,

but here's some pics of what it looked like.

This site is also very near where the very first NOVICE PACKET node was put on

223.58 Mhz at the stroke of midnite when Novice "Enhancement" went into effect.

Using the callsign WA2WNI-2 the node provided novice packet users access to the

WA2WNI PBBS prior to any significantly organized HTF backbone links going into

effect.

Later on, the ALBANY node site became a hub linking as many as six sites together

as well as providing USER LAN access.

The ALBANY node site was hosted by Business Radio Communications, Inc. (BRC)

of Rensselaer, NY.

If you look closely you can observe the single ground entry point used by this site. In

ten years of service the site suffered zero damaged equipment from lightning strikes,

despite numerous outages and cooked systems at commercial facilities nearby. Pics

below show the extensive use of Polyphaser's at the feedline entry plate.

This 200 foot tower was no easy climb, especially in the dead

of winter when one of the link yagis failed at the 165 foot level!

The yagi pointing right just under the 2nd bay from the top

provided years of reliable linking to CLOVE MT in

Dutchess County (CLOVE:N2CJ-1 on 145.09 Mhz).

The Doors are off here to show lots of cabinet space. At the

peak of its usage, the cabinet was loaded with six TNC's,

Radios, cabling harneses and deep discharge standby batteries.

Here's that famous Polyphaser "Lightning Strike Plate". All RF in or out of the building

goes through this single ground entry point, and is credited with keeping the site lightning

damage free for over 12 years. (Yes, several of the phasers have had to be replaced

after eating up some strike energy, but 45 bucks and a few hours down time sure beats

fried primary hardware and days or weeks off line!)

A close up of the user port and backbone that fed KNDRHK node and NYSEMO at the

NY State Emergency Management Office in Albany, NY.

Some of the commercial SMR and Trunking hardware sharing space with the node at

the ALBANY packet node site. Keeping the ham stuff as clean, neat and as shiny looking

as the commercial equipment helps a lot with P.R. for the hams! Its highly recommended

that ham stuff at sites like these be rigorously inspected for commercial quality performance

and also kept hidden in cabinets whenever possible!