DAREN of WV News December 25, 2016 (.C77)
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 Very Merry Christmas. Now one more holiday and we get to start all over again.
I finished getting the State Wide DAREN Net Check-in Certificates printed up and in the envelopes. I will be going to town this coming Wednesday and I plan on mailing them out. If you have been waiting for a certificate, by the time you read this News, the certificates should be on their way to your mailbox, or already there. If you have been waiting for one, and don't get it soon, let me know, and we'll try to figure what happen to it, or get you another one. It was November of last year when I sent out the last ones. It seems like time flies when you are having fun. I'm already working on next year’s schedule of activity events.
My Nephew Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, and I have been working with Soundcard Packet Radio. We are using the MixW version 3.2 program. The transceiver is the TYT U/V8000E Hand Held radio set up using Voice Operated Transmit (VOX). We added a couple 1.0 to 1.0 audio transformers to make a better match between the Hand Held Radio and the computer. The only problem that we've ran into is the time it takes for the transmitter it start transmitting when computer starts transmitting packet bursts. To make it work, we increased the Time Delay Transmit (TXD) to 1500 milliseconds (1.5 Seconds). Since a lot of the new Hand Held radio have a the capability of VOX, it may allow more Amateurs to get on Packet Radio without having to purchase a Terminal Node Controller (TNC). The MixW software is a free download from the Internet. Maybe we can get some more Amateurs interested in Packet Radio.
I've been hearing about a program called FLDigi, but haven't had time to look into it. I understand it also can be used for Packet Radio.
That's all I have for this week. I hear the weather is going to start getting worse, but what can we expect, since Winter started this past Wednesday.
There were 32 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Remember to Digipeat through the Ritchie County NODE of "RITCWV" until I can get it fixed