DAREN of WV News June 27, 2010 (.937]
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.
Now that Field Day is over maybe things will start getting back to normal around here. We had a great weekend for Field Day. I would like to hear from those who operated and how they did. Our group, Wood County Emergency Communications, operated 5A with the Call of WC8EC. We didn't make a whole bunch of contacts, but we did have some fun. We use Field Day as a time to try different ways to set up our stations and learn how to be prepared for an actual emergency or disaster. We identified several problems which we will be correcting, and hope to have them corrected by next year's Field Day, or an emergency, whichever comes first.
I noticed the K8KHW-10 Winlink 2000 site had been down for a week or two, so I contacted Randy Thomas, K8KHW. I wanted to see if he would have it back in operation before Field Day. I would have liked to use the site to pass some Field Day messages. Randy said that all of his Amateur Radio equipment has been taken apart. Randy said that he was getting ready to move. He still has one tower and a Triband Beam to get taken down. Maybe he will get his station back on the air when he gets moved to his new location.
I got an E-Mail from Jerry Strum, KC8SIG, today about a Winlink RMS gateway that he has installed in Tucker County. Jerry says the gateway name is KC8SIG- 10, and that anyone can use it. He says he still has the Tucker County DAREN NODE/PBBS of TUCKES/PRSNES up and running. I haven't had a chance to try out the KC8SIG-10 Winlink system yet, but plan to do so shortly. I want to thank Jerry for installing the system and hope that it gets some use. It's nice to have access to Winlink system again since the K8KHW-10 site is no longer in operation.
There were only 43 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Most of the DAREN operators might have been operating Field Day and didn't have access to a Packet Radio system, so they could participate in the net. John Western, KC8ODI, who's been participating in the net since March 13, 2004, has completed 300 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate. Daniel Ritchie, KC8ZLK, needs only one more check-in to 300.