DAREN of WV News July 24, 2016(.C55)
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 got an E-Mail from Jim Woodford, KC8MLK, about transceivers losing their memory. He's been talking with Frank Hughes, WD8DEP, who suggested the problem with some of the DAREN transceivers might be the memory back-up battery in the transceiver. A lot of the transceivers manufactured now days has a small battery that keeps a small amount of voltage on the memory chips, which holds the information the transceivers are programmed with. The back-up battery holds the memory when the main power is turned off. Since a lot of the DAREN Packet stations have been in operation for over 20 years, it's possible the back-up battery is dead, and the transceiver will lose it's memory when the station loses power for a short period of time. In most of the transceivers the little back-up battery is not easy to get to, so they don't get changed very often. I will have to check out the back-up battery on the Wetzel County NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV, the next time I go up there.
I've been busy with several projects, and having a hard time getting caught up. The biggest project is the building of two more racing clocks. I need to get them finished so they can be used at the Parkersburg Half Marathon which will be held on Saturday, August 20th, during the Parkersburg Homecoming.
There were only 28 check-ins to the net this week. My wife Dot, KC8HAI, who has been participating in the net since May 3, 1997, has completed 1000 check- ins. And, my son Kevin, KC8OXY, who has been participating in the net since July 1, 2000, has completed 800 check-ins. Both of these operators will be receiving their certificates. I need to get the certificates caught up again. There was a new callsign on the net this week and that was WV8MAT. It's only a new call. Matt Gregg, who used to be KD8OMT, changed his call since the last time he checked into the net. He is now WV8MAT. There is still one station that hasn't found out the callsign in their TNC is still setup as "NOCALL". That station checked into the net at around 12:00 noon on Saturday morning.