DAREN of WV News July 2, 2017(.D04)
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.
Everything has been quiet this week. Everyone is probably resting up after the Field Day weekend. I have been busy trying to get all of the Field Day equipment sorted out and put back where it should be. I took a couple minutes and started a list of things that needs to be done before the next Field Day, Exercise, or other type disaster. If you didn't learn anything from Field Day then you have your act together, or you didn't do anything. I'm sure that everyone who operated Field Day has something they would like to correct or improve on. A few things I want to work on are: (1) take the female plug off of all our 50 foot #10 extension cords and replace them with quad boxes. We had a couple cords with bad plugs. (2) Put together two PSK31 stations, since it takes a while to assemble them during Field Day, and (3) make up longer heavy duty jumper cables with Anderson Power Connectors. These are just a few things on my to do list.
After I wrote about the problem I had trying to get the Field Day RADIOGRAMs sent via the DAREN system, I got an E-Mail from Randy Thomas, K8KHW, about the Winlink 2000 system. He said the path between the RITCWV Node and his K8KHW-10 system isn't the best, but most of the time it works. He said that he did change out his transceiver and it seems to have helped. If I can get the Pleasants County NODE/PBBS of PLEAWV/STMYWV back in operation we will have a better path to the Winlink 2000 system. Randy also suggested that I install RMSExpress on one of our laptops, and then try WINMORE to link to the Winlink system. He said that it works really well. I will try that and maybe I'll get a little more experience sending E-Mail to the Internet via the DAREN system. I want to thank Randy for keeping the Winlink system operational. If you get a chance give it a try, and get some experience. The information on how to use the system was written up in the June 4, 2017 DAREN News.
There were only 29 check-ins to the net this week. I figure that with the 4th of July holiday coming up, several operators were out of town. Frank Hughes, WD8DEP, who has been participating in the net since November 20, 2004, has completed 600 check-ins, and will be receiving his certificate. Joe Peterson, N8DSN, needs only one more check-in to make 1150. My wife Dot Harris, KC8HAI, needs only one more check-in to make 1050. My son Kevin Harris, KC8OXY, needs only one more check-in to make 850. And, Gregory Day, N8GD, needs only one more check-in to make 50.