DAREN of WV News December 26, 2010(.963]
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 want to wish everyone a Happy and Safe New Year.
I've been asked by a couple of operators when BEACONs should be used on the DAREN system. I told them that when Packet Radio first started several years ago BEACONs were used to alert other Packet Radio operators when stations were in operation, and it told where they were at. At the time BEACONs were necessary to advertise where they were at, so other operators could connect to them. But, since the DAREN system has a map that shows what counties have DAREN NODEs and PBBSs, we decided that BEACONs were no longer needed. BEACONs are a handy tool in the case of an advisory when the users of the DAREN system need to be notified of an event that could affect a large area of the state. A few years ago I set up the Wood County NODE, WOODWV, to send out a BEACON whenever the National Weather Service would generate a Severe Weather Advisory. The BT (BEACON TEXT) had the message "The National Weather Service has issued a Weather Advisory. Please listen to the Weather Station in your area". The only problem that I had was how to get as much of the area covered in one broadcast. At the time, I didn't know the NODE ALIAS (MYN), and the Digipeater ALIAS (MYA) could have different names. Since you can set up your station to Digipeat through eight Digipeaters, I would have to set up the path that I wanted to Weather Alert to go out. I would use the NODE ALIASs of eight Digipeaters to cover as much of the state as I could. When I figured out the TNCs on DAREN stations could have a separate ALIAS for the NODE (MYN) and the Digipeater (MYA), I started asking the System Operators to change the Digipeater ALIAS (MYA) to the ALIAS of "DAREN". By changing the ALIASs of the Digipeaters to DAREN, a BEACON could be set up to cover the whole state in a very short time. By using command B E x via DAREN,DAREN,DAREN (BEACON EVERY x VIA DAREN,DAREN,DAREN) you could cover most of the state in just a few seconds. The x on the B E is for how often you want the station to BEACON, it can be set to anywhere from 1 (one minute) to 255 (255 minutes). I also ask those who checked into the State Wide DAREN Net each week to not use the ALIAS of DAREN when Digipeating to the Net Control Station. Just using one "DAREN" to digipeat, can tie up several NODEs/Digipeaters that have the MYA ALIAS of "DAREN". There are still a few DAREN NODEs on the system that have the MYN and MYA set to same ALIAS, so we can't cover the whole state yet. If you are the System Operator for a DAREN NODE, I would like to see the MYN set to an abbreviation of the County name, followed by the state, and the MYA set as "DAREN". Then if it's necessary to send out a BEACON using the B E x via DAREN,DAREN,DAREN, there needs to be information placed in the BT (BEACON TEXT) to tell why the BEACON is being sent.
There were only 52 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Three of which were: MERRY, XMAS, SANTA. Gladys Gorrell, KC8GIZ, who's been participating in the net since March 15, 1997, has completed 700 check-ins, and will be receiving her certificate. Happy New Year, and may God Bless America.