DAREN of WV News September 14, 2014 (.B58)
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.
The only information that I have this week is the WCEC (Wood County Emergency Communications) group will be providing the safety communications for some more High School/Middle School Cross Country foot races this coming Tuesday. Then next Saturday, the WCEC VE group will be holding a One Day Amateur Radio Technician class followed by VE Examinations. The class will be held at the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department building, 211 6th Street, in Parkersburg. The class will start at 9:00 AM.
Since we have some new operators on the DAREN system, I'll give a little more information. For the past few years we've been trying to get the system operators of the DAREN NODEs to set the MYA (MY Alias) to "DAREN". If the MYA is set to DAREN, then the system can be used to broadcast State Wide emergency messages in just a few seconds. To send a State Wide Emergency Message, you just need to set your Terminal Station TNC up to send out an "Unconnected" message. If you need to cover as much of the state as possible, you set the UNPROTO command to something like: U NET VIA DAREN,DAREN,DAREN,DAREN Since most of the main DAREN NODEs are set up to Digipeat using "DAREN", every one of the NODEs that can hear another NODE will think that it is supposed to Digipeat the message being sent. On the Kantronics TNC, you then type the letter "K", which will put the TNC into an unconnected mode. You can then type your Emergency Message and press <enter>. The message will bounce around the DAREN system until all or most of the DAREN NODEs have Digipeated the message. Since a lot of the NODEs can hear each other the message may digipeat around the DAREN system several times before it quits. Emergency Messages such as severe weather advisories is a good example of using the State Wide system. It's best not to Digipeat using "DAREN". If you want to Digipeat, it's best to use the NODE Name, such as WOODWV.
There were only 40 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. I don't know what happened to the rest of the regular operators. Maybe the Solar Flare that hit the Earth took their station off the air. I checked my Backup Net File, just make sure that my Main Net File hadn't crapped out or something. It's possible they may have just not took the chance of the Solar Flare, and left their stations turned off and disconnected. I know their were a few people here in the Wood County area who said they were going to turn off their Hand Held radios, and unplug their chargers from the commercial electric. Brad Carabine, KC8TYU, who has been participating in the net since October 19, 2002, has completed 550 check-ins.