DAREN of WV News November 30, 2014 (.B69)
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 hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and didn't eat too much. Our family is still eating leftovers. My wife, Dot, KC8HAI, says it's kind of nice having leftovers since she works several days getting ready for the holidays and Thanksgiving dinner. It gives her a short break, but not much of one. Now she has to get everything ready for the Wood County Emergency Communications (WCEC) Christmas dinner which will be this coming Tuesday.
With the lack of time over the summer, I'm finally getting to work on the new WCEC Communications Trailer. It's not a new trailer, but it is new to the group. The trailer is a 1995 Terry Camping Trailer the group was able to purchase a couple of years ago. There was a lot of modifications inside the trailer to get it ready to make it useable as a four operator position communications trailer. And, there was a lot of things that needed to be done before the radios could be installed. The trailer has four antenna bars that go across the top of the trailer, each one of them with four antenna mounts. The bars are made so they can be laid down while the trailer is in motion, and turned back up when it's sitting still. All of the antenna mounts have the coax that go inside the trailer and are terminated on a panel. The termination panel makes it easy to run the coaxes to each of the four operating positions. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done before all of the radios are useable. There are several radios that can be used right now if the trailer needs to be put into service. All of the radios are being installed on slide- in mounts so they can be changed around later if they need to be. You wouldn't think as Amateurs there would be that many radios, but they aren't all Amateur radios. There are several Public Service radios, WV State Interoperability Radio Network (SIRN), Citizens Radio (CB), General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) Marine Radio, Joint Emergency Management Network (JEMNet), and radios that have Business Radio channels. The trailer will have a DAREN Packet Radio station at each of the operating positions. Also each of the positions will have a telephone, with its own extension number, that can be plugged in the portable Telephone PBX system, which can be operated through Cellular Telephone, when needed.
There were only 35 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. The low turnout may have been since it was the Thanksgiving holiday. Ashley Shiflett, KD8QOQ, needs only one more check-in to make 150. When I'm not working on the new Communications trailer, I will be getting DAREN Net Check-in Certificates ready to mail out.
That's all I have for this week, but if you have anything you would like to pass on to others, let me know.