[HamWAN PSDR] Portland uplink node

I am still reading on some of the specs on the PSDR and understanding the operations so bear with me if I'm missing a section. I live in Portland near the airport in line of sight of Larch Mountain and I see Larch has recently come online to link the Portland area into the PSDN. I have gigabit public internet connection with the hardware resources to either integrate a secondary LAN or operate an uplink node. I do not currently have any connection to hamwan or the communication equipment but I wanted to offer my network as an uplink point. Am I understanding that I should purchase the equipment to get established established as a standard client node firstly then circle back to connect as an upilnk? Thank You, Justin W6UDF