DAREN of WV News January 3, 2016(.C26)
WA8LLM (304) 679-3470 wa8llm@yahoo.com
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, 319 COMMUNICATIONS DR, WAVERLY, WV 26184
www.wc8ec.com or 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 www.wc8ec.com and www.wc8ec.org websites.
I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. As usual the new year came in even while I was sleeping. I didn't need to make any noise to let everyone know it was the new year, there was so much noise out here in the country, that no one would have heard my noise except me. As long as it came in without any major problems, that's good enough for me.
Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, and I had a great time programming the old 99 Channel, 100 Watt, Motorola radios this past Tuesday. Now I need to work on getting the Terminal Node Controllers wired up to them. With any luck I should be able to get some of them in operation in the next couple of weeks. I know there are several stations that need to be replaced, since they seem to be having problems. It may also help the system by replacing some of the 25 Watt stations with 100 Watt stations. I know some of the Alinco DR-1200 radios have memory problems, and forget what frequency they are supposed to be on.
Not much else is going on right now. The weather is just a little too cold to be working on towers, so it may be awhile before I get to change out a few antennas. The Jackson County station needs to have the antenna replaced since the top of it is bent at a 90 degree angle. When we worked on the Wirt County station about a month ago, we found that a Copper J-Pole antenna worked better on a 20 foot mast pipe, on the ground, then the antenna that is mounted at 40 feet on the tower. At the same tower site as the Wirt County DAREN station there's a Remote Receiver for the 147.255 MHz voice repeater. Both of the 2 Meter antennas need to be replaced.
Well, that's all I have for right now. Try to stay warm and dry, spring is only two and a half months away. If you have any activities that you would like to report, just let me know.
There were 43 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Ken Butler, WA8TOX, needs only one more check-in to make 300.