DAREN of WV News August 31, 2014 (.B56)
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 news this week. I was able to get into the Hancock County NODE/PBBS of HANCWV/WEIRWV last week and change the callsign to N8RH-7. I've already let Roy Humes, N8RH, know that it has been completed. Roy sent me an E-Mail saying he is having trouble getting connected through the Ohio County NODE/PBBS of OHIOWV/WLNGWV. I'm not for sure the problem is with that station. When I post the DAREN News and State Wide DAREN Net Announcements, I don't seem to have any problem. It seems like it started happening after I changed the callsign on the Hancock County station. I do know that you need to watch the SSID of your stations when you have more than one Packet station on the air. The SSID is the dash (-) number that follows your callsign on the Packet stations. The SSID numbers on Packet station can be anything from -1 to -15. There can be callsigns such as WA8LLM to WA8LLM-15 for a total of 16 callsigns. The basic callsign on the station doesn't have a dash number. If any two or more Packet stations have the same SSID, there will be a lot of confusion, and Packet stations will not know what to do. If you have more than one Packet station on the air, and they are close enough to hear each other, be sure to space out their SSID Numbers. Most of the main county DAREN NODE/PBBS stations use the SSID of -7.
While we are on Packet lessons, here's something we don't want to forget. When posting any messages on the DAREN PBBSs, be sure to use the "ST" command, such as ST WA8LLM If you use the plain "S" command it will post the message as a private or personal message, and the only person to see it is the station it is sent to. For example, if you send me a message posting it as S WB8LLM I will not see it. The only person that will see the message is WB8LLM, since it was sent as a private or personal message to WB8LLM, and not WA8LLM.
The Wood County Emergency Communications group will be providing the safety communications for the Chic-Fil-A Cross Country School races next Saturday. There will be 12 races during the day. The races will start at 9:00 am and run every 30 minutes, so the group will be tied up all day. There are three other cross country races scheduled in September and October, and the race officials want the Amateur Radio group to help with them too.
There were only 42 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Douglas Haines, W8DEH, who has been participating in the net since May 2, 2009, has completed 200 check-ins, and will be receiving his certificate. My Daughter Cathy Wotwring, KC8DJJ, needs only one more check-in to make 950. There was one new check-in to the net this week and that was Matt Gregg, KD8OMT. I want to welcome Matt to the DAREN system, and hope he participates in the State Wide DAREN Net as often as possible. Matt has been working with his Packet station for awhile and thinks he finally got the bugs worked out of it. Matt is the West Virginia ARRL SEC (Section Emergency Coordinator). Matt wanted to let all of the DEC (District Emergency Coordinator) and EC (Emergency Coordinator) know that he can now take their monthly EC/DEC Reports by Packet Radio. He says that if you want to send you report via Packet, you can post it on the Ripley, WV PBBS of RPLYWV.