DAREN of WV News April 4, 2010 (.925]
Kenneth Harris WA8LLM (304) 679-3470 wa8llm@yahoo.com
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
P.O. BOX 3328, PARKERSBURG, WV 26103
http://www.wc8ec.org
DAREN News, are articles and information about the Digital Amateur Radio "Emergency" Network of WV, which operates on 145.69 MHz. Anyone having any information about DAREN, or Amateur Radio in general, and would like to share it with others, may send it to WA8LLM @ PKBGWV on 145.69 MHz, or to my E-Mail: wa8llm@yahoo.com. A State Wide DAREN NET is operated every Saturday from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, and lately, before and after those hours. The DAREN Net Announcement, showing the MAIN NCS, ALTERNATE NCS, NODEs accessible to both, and the previous week's check-ins, are posted by Thursday on most of the Main county DAREN PBBS'. The DAREN News can also be found on the wc8ec.org website.
I received an E-Mail from Roy Humes, N8RH, about the Hancock County NODE/PBBS of HANCWV/WEIRWV. Roy said he thinks the radio may have been the problem causing the station to be off the air for a couple of weeks. He didn't have a Wattmeter to check the power output, but he did get it back in operation, at least on a temporary basis. He says that if happens again he has a spare radio that he may put on the station.
I had a technical problem with the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Our communications group was operating a Free Coffee Safety Break over the weekend, and I was helping with the first shift Friday Morning. I had a Packet Radio station in operation so that I could monitor the net while I was away from the house. While I was monitoring the net, everything looked okay. I never gave it any more thought until Saturday evening when I noticed that something just wasn't right with the net. It was about 6:30 PM when I finally figured out the problem and got the net working properly. Even though the State Wide DAREN Net is scheduled to be in operation from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Saturdays, I usually have it set up a lot earlier so that I won't have to hurry home, if I'm involved with some kind of activity on Saturday when the net is supposed to start. There were several operators that had been trying to check into the net on Friday and Saturday morning, but the system wasn't working right. If you had tried to get checked into the net Friday or Saturday and wasn't successful, let me know so that I can get you participation records corrected.
Due to the problem that I had with the Net Control Station set up, there were only 48 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Robert Sellars, KB2FEL, who's been participating in the net since September 9, 2006, has completed 150 check-ins. With any luck, Robert will be receiving his certificate shortly, along with all of the other certificates that I need to get printed up and mailed out.