DAREN of WV News June 29, 2014 (.B47)
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.
Well, I hope everyone survived Field Day. I just got home a little bit ago and shut down the State Wide DAREN Net, and then set down to relax. We got all of the radio equipment packed into a couple of trucks and a trailer when we left the site. We left two trailers that were used as operating positions at the site, and will get them home in a couple of days. Our group had a great time even though it seemed the bands were down a little at our location. We thought it might be antenna problems or radio trouble, since we could hardly make any contacts on 40 and 75 Meters on Saturday. However, this morning everything seemed to be working fine, and we made several contacts. Our score will be down a little bit this year, but we're not out to make the highest score. Our group goes out to learn how to set up emergency stations in case we have to do it for real. We also go for the fun and to let the young members of the group get used to operating in less than ideal conditions. We need to get the young ones to learn because they will be taking over some day when us old guys go away.
Tom Cooper, WV8TOM, the Emergency Services Director of Tyler County, has asked me to give him a hand with a tower project he is working on. If the weather is good this coming Thursday, I will be making a trip to Tyler County. Since I won't be very far from the Wetzel County NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV, I will also work on that station. The last two times I had to work on the station, it was an easy fix. The transceiver keeps going back to the default frequency of 145.00 MHz. I think I'll just change out the radio this time, if it went back to the default frequency. I'll be sure to take an extra TNC and power supply, just in case that's not the problem.
Don't forget to mark your calendar for the West Virginia ARRL State Convention on August 23rd. The convention will be held at Jackson Mills in Weston, WV
There were 47 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Jim Woodford, KC8MLK, needs only one more check-in to make 500. There was a new check-in to the net this week, and that was Bradley Jones, KD8YKK, from Coalton, WV. I want to welcome Bradley to the DAREN system, and hope he participates in the net as often as he can.