DAREN of WV News November 16, 2014 (.B67)
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.
I got an E-Mail from Roy Humes, N8RH. Roy says he has two spare Kantronics KPC-2 Terminal Node Controllers, and two transceivers, one a Kenwood 261A, and the other is Radio Shack HTX 242 that he would donate to the DAREN system to have put in service. If anyone would like to put a station in service in a area that needs a main county NODE/PBBS, let me know and we can see about getting the equipment to you. The only other things that will be needed to put the stations together are power supplies and antennas. You might check with your county Emergency Service Director for access to one of their tower locations.
From the sounds of the weather, it looks like there is going to be some snow coming this way. It seems a little early to start getting snow, but we will have to just take whatever comes along.
I've been getting equipment together to hold an antenna class this coming Saturday. The class will be the study of antenna BALUNs, and wideband antennas that will be used for Field Day, and can be used for any other emergency or disaster communication activities.
Last week I wrote about trying to check into a voice net that Ron Wilson, K8RWW, talked about. When I tried to see if I could get into the Philippi repeater on 145.15 MHz, I found that another repeater in Athens, Ohio was on the same frequency, but uses carrier squelch, and I kept bringing it up. I guess I won't be able to check into the Philippi net until Athens gets some kind of Tone or Digital Squelch system on their repeater.
Not much else to report this week from here. If you have anything to report that is going on, let me know.
There were only 38 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net again this week. Buford Lemon Jr., KB8QLG, needs only one more check-in to make 600. I have been busy working on other activities that I haven't had time to start printing the certificates for those who have been waiting for them.