DAREN of WV News April 1, 2018(.D43)
(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.
Not much to report this week. It doesn't look like the weather is going to allow me to do much with the DAREN stations that I'm responsible for. I will be getting ready for the Challenge at Mountwood Mountain Bike Race next Sunday. The bike race course is about 24 mile long over the bike and walking trails through Mountwood Park. The radio operators will be stationed around the course at some of the more hazardous locations where injuries are likely. The radio operators will write the bike numbers and the times as they pass their location. Keeping track of the bike riders and their times allows the radio operators know if any of the riders has a problem between check points.
A couple years ago Wood County Emergency Communications built racing clocks with 7 inch numbers that are located at the mile markers for three road runs and several High School/Middle School Cross Country foot races. The clocks are all started by hand, by the radio operators at each of the mile markers. The clocks are started by the radio operator hearing the gun shot or whistle from the official race starter. It was planned that in the future the clocks could be started direct by radio. I've started working on the circuit and printed circuit boards to put in the clocks. We are hoping to have them ready for a trail test at the first road run on April 28th.
There were only 29 check-ins again to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Mike Talkington, N8FWD, said he was going to set up his Packet station to take check- ins from those who couldn't make into my Net Control Station. I assume he didn't get any check-ins since I didn't hear from him. I do want to thank Mike for wanting to help run as an auxiliary NCS for the net until the Randolph County NODE/PBBS is back in operation.