DAREN of WV News June 28, 2015 (.B99)
WA8LLM (304) 679-3470 wa8llm@yahoo.com
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, P.O. BOX 3328, PARKERSBURG, WV 26103
http://www.wc8ec.com
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.com website.
I received a message from Gene Roy, N8ER, about the Randolph County NODE/PBBS of RANDWV/ELKNWV. Gene said the station was back on the air, and that I should give it a try. I was able to connect to it via my regular paths. I want to thank Gene and Zane Hammack, WV8ZH, for getting the station back in operation.
How was your Field Day weekend? Did you get wet? Even though it rained, the wind blew, and the temperature was cold we still had a good time. From what I have seen so far it looks like, the Wood County Emergency Communications group operating as 5A using the callsign of WC8EC had about 99 CW contacts, 22 PSK31 contacts, and 634 Voice contacts. They have 1350 Bonus points. It was the first time I used the homemade Wide Band 75/80 Meter and 40 Meter antennas for Field Day. The 75/80 Meter antenna had a 1.5:1 SWR on each end of the band, and less than that across the rest of the band. The 40 Meter antenna had a 1.1:1 SWR clear across the band. It made it easy to operate those two bands since there was no tuning of the antennas as the operators went up and down the bands.
I need to go back to Pleasants County tomorrow and take down the groups 24 by 80 foot canopy. We put it up on Thursday for a wedding on Saturday. I didn't receive any telephone calls reporting any problems with it, even though there was high winds from Friday evening to the end of Field Day. I guess I'll know when I get up there tomorrow.
There were 40 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Kimberly Shiflett, KD8OWG, needs only one more check-in to make 200. There was one new check-in to the net this week, and that was Mary Jones, KD8YKJ, from Coalton, WV. I want to welcome Mary to the DAREN system, and hope she checks into the net as often as possible. There was one callsign that checked into the net that I couldn't make out, and that was KDKYKN. The station checked into the net at about 6:19pm on Saturday. I tried different combinations of callsigns, but the ones I came up with have never checked into the State Wide DAREN Net. It may be their first time. If you checked into the net at about that time, don't see your callsign on the Net Announcement List coming out this week, and think it may have been you, send me a message so that I can update your check- in record. I want everyone to get all of the check-ins they deserve for participating in the DAREN system.
Have a happy and safe 4th of July.