DAREN of WV News June 3, 2018(.D52)
(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 went to Sammy Mercer, N8SVX's house Monday and spent most of the day working on some of my spare Kantronics KPC-3 TNCs. The week before I had modified and upgraded them to 512K of memory. Monday Sammy and I upgraded them from versions 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 6.1 to Version 8.2. On Wednesday Sammy is supposed to come to my house and we are going to upgrade the eight TNCs that I use when I teach my Packet classes. I have already upgraded them to 100K memory from the Static RAMs that I pulled out of the other TNCs that I upgraded to 512K. I didn't figure the class room TNCs needed 512K of memory since they are only used for teaching in the class. They really didn't need 100K of memory, but they were available, besides, I know where they are at if I need one. Michael Tyler, WA8YWO, sent me an E-Mail link where another Amateur had upgraded his Kantronics KPC-3 units. It's a pretty good article, and just about the same way that Sammy and I did our TNCs. Here's the link to the article if you are interested in upgrading your KPC-3: http://freemansgarage.com/blog/?p=153
Gene Roy, N8ER, sent me an E-Mail asking what has happened to the Wood County NODE/PBBS of WOODWV/PKBGWV. I did some tests with it the next day, and from the tests, it looks like the transceiver has either went deft or at least hard of hearing. I'm putting together another station to replace the one that is up there. It needs replaced anyway because of the way it acted in the winter when the temperature got below freezing. The first chance I get, I'll change out the station.
Field Day is coming up in a few weeks. I've been trying to get everything ready to go. Our group is planning to have two PSK31 stations in operation. The computers have been set up and the soundcard interface we'll be using have been built. I have the cables that go between the interfaces and the transceivers about ready except for the microphone plugs to go on the transceivers I hope to get them completed this coming week. I want to make sure they are ready before Field Day so we don't waste a lot of time setting them up at the Field Day site..
While posting the DAREN News and Net Announcement this week, I noticed I was unable to connect to the Preston County NODE/PBBS of PRESWV/KINGWV. I also noticed for the past few weeks I haven't been able to list the messages on the WEIRWV PBBS, and there's not enough room to post the DAREN News or Net Announcement.
There were 36 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net again this week. There was one new check-in to the net this week and that was Kenneth Costello, KC3LML, from Morgantown. I want to welcome Kenneth to the DAREN system and hope he can check into the DAREN Net as often as possible.