DAREN of WV News November 11, 2012(.A62)
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 attended a meeting on Wednesday for the Regional Hospital exercise to be held on December 6th. It looks like the exercise is going to be fun. At one time during the drill all telephone communication systems are going to fail and all communications must be handled by radio. What radios we use will be up to the communications operators. We still need at least two Amateur Radio operators at each of the hospitals to provide communications. We are hoping to use Packet Radio for a lot of the communications. I'm still going to hold the Amateur Radio Packet class on November 24th. If you are interested in attending the class let me know.
It's been a pretty quiet this week with no one having any information to pass on. During the posting of the DAREN News and Net Announcements this past week, I stumbled on a couple of PBBSs that I couldn't connect to. I figure that it might have been because the power may have been off in those areas due to this last storm. Also there was a couple of stations who usually check into the State Wide DAREN that didn't make it. They may have been without power. Maybe everything will be back next week.
I've been trying to line up operators who can help with the Regional Hospital exercise on December 6th. While working with some of the Amateurs in Calhoun County I got an E-Mail from Rod Godfrey, W8RKG. I've talked to Rod on the telephone a few times, and he's trying to find where the Calhoun County NODE/PBBS of CALHWV/GRNTWV is located. In December 2008 I worked with Barry Pitts, N8MJB, while he was trying to find a hilltop location to place the NODE/PBBS, but at the time the only place he could get it installed was at his house. Since that time Barry has moved out of the county, but the station is still in operation. Rod is going to try to find where the station is located, and try to place it at a higher location.
There were 44 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Roy Humes, N8RH, needs only one more check-in to make 800.