During much of 1991, the SouthLAN and MNWADA Packet Radio Clubs in Southern Minnesota planned and designed 3 high-speed packet radio nodes to be installed at Apple Valley, Faribault, and Dodge Center. The Faribault site, MNFBL:N0QVC-1, would have a 1200 baud user frequency on 145.01 MHz, a 9600 baud backbone towards Dodge Center on 430.95 MHz, and a 19.2 kilobaud backbone towards N0DAI-1 in Apple Valley on 430.55 MHz. This was one of the first high-speed amateur wireless data communications services in the upper midwest, and passed hundreds of messages between the Twin Cities Metro area and Rochester, MN throughout the 90s and early 2000s. All locations used WA8BXN’s MSYS bulletin board system and G8BPQ nodes, with a combination of Kantronics Data Engines and D4-10 radios. The N0QVC-1 Johnson RSDL VHF radio is still used as an APRS node on 144.39 in the Faribault area at this location as of 2016.
The video is a glimpse of the antenna and TNC install at the Faribault location on May 23, 1992.