DAREN of WV News January 12, 2014 (.B23)
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.
Not much to report this week. I figured with the cold snap that we had last week, there would be a few DAREN NODEs down. But, when I went around the state posting the DAREN News and State Wide DAREN Net Announcement, I didn't have any trouble and all of the usual stations were up and running.
I've been getting some E-Mails from Matt Koval, KA8YEZ, who is the ARRL Emergency Coordinator (EC) for Ohio County, and John Gorby, KC8FZH, EC Marshall County. Matt and John have been playing around with another Packet type program called FLDIGI. They used the program at a hospital exercise in December. I haven't had a chance to go on the Internet and search for it. I don't know what frequency it operates on, or anything. From what it sounds, it's basically like the DAREN system. After I get through with the DAREN News and getting it posted throughout the state, I may try to find some information about it. It might be something we can get more operators to work with.
I'll be teaching a Printed Circuit Board class on January 25th. To show how to make printed circuit boards, we are going to build Radio-to-Computer interface cards for soundcard programs. I'm hoping to get enough interest build up that we can get more Packet Radio operators.
There were 51 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Well, I didn't get started printing up the DAREN Check-in Certificates like I had planned, but maybe shortly.