DAREN of WV News July 8, 2018(.D57)
(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. I'm finally getting things caught up from Field Day. I've been working on the problems that I recognized during Field Day and already planning for next year. One problem we recognized was using a car headlight to test our power supplies. Since the headlight that we use draws about 6 amps, it should be a good load. I've never ran into it before, but when we were testing some of our power supplies, we found the headlight wouldn't come on, and the voltage would drop to zero. The voltage was okay without the headlight, but as soon as we hooked up the headlight the voltage would drop to zero. We thought the power supplies were bad. We found that if you leave the headlight on for about 30 seconds it would light up. This was only happening on a couple of the Astron 12 and 20 Amp power supplies. On a 7 Amp power supply the same thing would happen, but it took several minutes for the voltage to build up enough to light the headlight. I remembered several years ago I was trying to test an incandescent lamp with an analog Ohmmeter, and found the resistance was getting less the longer I left the Ohmmeter on it. The car headlight must have a very low resistance until it starts getting warm, when its resistance gets higher, it lets the (voltage get higher, and then the headlight would come on. Now I've been testing the power supplies with some high wattage 6 Ohm resistors and an Ammeter. The car headlights are good for testing batteries, but not low and medium Ampere regulated power supplies.
I still need to work on my three Yaesu FT-840 transceivers and find out why I have lost the transmit Audio. I would like to start working on the remote DAREN packet stations, but I need to finish getting the racing clocks ready for the Parkersburg Half Marathon on August 18th, and I need to finish wire brushing and painting the groups metal folding chairs. I need to get them done before the Parkersburg Homecoming where they will be used for the BINGO games. The homecoming will be held on August 17th, 18th, and 19th. It seems like there's always something coming up to keep me busy. Winter is going to be here before I get to work on the Packet stations.
There were 33 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Joe Peterson, N8DSN, needs only one more check-in to make 1200. And, Anna Hendershot, KC8JWW, needs only one more check-in to make 1050.