DAREN of WV News October 11, 2015(.C14)
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 an E-Mail from Eugene Roy, N8ER, on Tuesday after he, Mark Sweitzer, KD8MIV, Bruce Minor, KA8ZKL, and Edward Caplinger, KD8MIB, went to the North Mountain tower site to work on the Pendleton County NODE/PBBS of PENDWV/FKLNWV. Gene said that it looked like Mother Nature had a hand in taking the station off the air. The group had to change out the radio, power supply, and antenna. I was able to connect to the station from a couple other NODEs. I want to thank the group for getting the station back in operation.
Also on Tuesday, the Wood County Emergency Communications group provided the communications for the last High School/Middle School Cross County foot races. There were only 2 races which started at 5:00 pm, and were over by 6:00 pm. That gave the group of eight plenty of time to get to the monthly WCEC business meeting 15 miles away.
I want to thank all of the Amateurs who made it to the Parkersburg/Wood County Hamfest yesterday. From the sale of the main registration tickets, it looks like the crowd was down a little from last year. We have already started working on the 2016 Hamfest. When Terry Mills, KC8TUE, and I went to Columbus, Ohio, to pick up the main prizes for this year, we also bought the same radios for next year’s Hamfest. Put the date of October 8, 2016, on your calendar for next year’s Hamfest. The Hamfest is always held on the second Saturday in October.
I didn't get to work on the new Jackson County and Wetzel County NODEs like I had planned a couple of weeks ago. On Tuesday, Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, and I are going to start going through about a dozen Alinco DR-1200 Packet radios that have problems. The radios were taken out of service over the years due to several different events, mostly lightening. We will try to get some of them working by combining them together. Maybe we will get enough working to build a few DAREN stations.
There were only 32 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Roy Humes, N8RH, who has been participating in the net since November 27, 2004, has completed 950 check-ins, and will be receiving his certificate. Now that most of the activities for the Summer and Fall are over, I'll have some time to get caught up on the DAREN Certificates that several operators are waiting for.