DAREN of WV News July 10. 2016 (.C53)
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 have very few things to report this week. Ever since the severe storm went through West Virginia a couple days before Field Day, I've noticed a couple DAREN stations that seem to be off the air. The Tucker County NODE/PBBS of TUCKWV/DAVIWV and the Washington County, Ohio, NODE/PBBS of WASHOH/MRTAOH, seem to be out of service. I've been pretty busy putting equipment away from Field Day, going to activity and LEPC meetings, and building two more racing clocks, getting ready for the Parkersburg Half Marathon on August 20th. I finished building 11 clocks last year and used them for three races. The clocks have already been used for two road races this year. Since the WCEC (Wood County Emergency Communications) group has placed and operated the clocks for several races in the county, the race officials would like to have a couple more placed around the Half Marathon race course. They said they had several comments from runners, about having racing clocks at every Mile Marker around the race course. This is just one thing that WCEC does to promote Amateur Radio in and around Wood County. Now that the weather has turned a lot better, I need to plan on going to Tyler County and take down a 120 foot tower that has been taken out of service. The tower was given to the WCEC group for taking it down. I was up the tower a couple years ago and it was in good shape. Plans are to take it down, and then put it back up here in the county. The tower will be used to install a back-up repeater for the 147.255 MHz repeater. It may also have three Packet Stations on it.
That's it for this week.
The State Wide DAREN Net has been going down with check-ins for the past few months. Before long it won't be much use to hold it. There were only 28 check-ins this week. I can still remember when there were over 100. Frank Hughes, WD8DEP, who has been participating in the net since November 20, 2004, has completed 550 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate. Joe Peterson, N8DSN, needs only one more check-in to make 1100. There was one station that checked into the net with the callsign of "NOCALL". The station checked into the net on Saturday morning at around 11:19am. If you don't see your callsign on this weeks Net Announcement, and think it may have been you, let me know so I can update your net participation records.