DAREN of WV News November 2, 2014 (.B65)
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.
Yesterday, Terry Mills, KC8TUE, and I attended the Navy MARS meeting at North Bend State Park. At the meeting I meet with some of the Packet Radio operators that used to participate in the DAREN system. Some of them are thinking about getting back on Packet, and maybe try to get a county NODE back in operation.
For the last week or so, I've been watching E-Mails about several stations, in another state wanting to put together a state wide Packet Radio network, but they don't know what they are wanting. I can remember when the DAREN of WV network first started. We had only one Amateur Radio operator who wanted us to put the DAREN system on an already established network, with backbone networks. The only problem was the system had all kind of different systems like Buy, Sale, Trade BBSs, DX Clusters NODEs, etc, on it. While he was trying to talk me into putting the system on the established network, by sending messages back and forth, he keep getting disconnected due to all of the other traffic on the frequency. He finally saw that an Emergency network, without all of the other types of traffic on it, was the way to go. He gave us the blessing, and even helped set up some of the DAREN NODEs. We wanted to make sure the DAREN system was as simple as it could be, and didn't want a lot of additional features. To make it work, with very few problems, we decided to use the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) system. The DAREN system has been up and running for over 20 years with very few problems. Nothing is perfect; County NODE/PBBS stations would come and go. Since a lot of the stations are maintained by individuals and Amateur Radio clubs, some of the stations go off the air for extended period of time. Some may come back on the air, and other may never return. It would be nice to get county Emergency Service agencies to help provide some of the equipment, and use some of their tower sites. If you would like to put a DAREN station on the air, maybe you could talk to your Emergency Service into helping.
Now that Daylight Savings Time is over, it's time to set the time in your Terminal or Remote TNC (Terminal Node Controller). Also be sure to change the batteries in your Smoke Detectors and Carbon Monoxide Detectors.
There were 45 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. I don't know how I did it, but I did it again this year, last week I didn't recognize that Madison Sweitzer, KB3URT, needed one more check-in to make 200. Sorry about that Madison. With this week's check-in, Madison, who has been participating in the net since October 2, 2010, has completed 200 check-ins and will be receiving her certificate. I also got an E-Mail from Tom White, W3JTW, about the DAREN Certificates. I guess I have just been too busy and haven't got the certificates caught up. I may try to do that this coming week.