DAREN of WV News October 21, 2018(.D72)
(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 will busy again this coming week. I will be getting ready for the last District 4 High School Cross Country races which will be held on Thursday. I also have a couple LEPC (Local Emergency Planning Committee) meeting to go to, one in Ritchie County, and one in Pleasants County. After that I will try to get to work on some of the DAREN NODEs that I'm responsible for.
Not much else happening this week. I will be meeting up with Frank Hughes, WD8DEP, on October 30th. Frank has a bunch of old computer equipment he is wanting to get rid of. If you do any building of any kind of radio or other electronic equipment, you would be surprised on what you can find in old computers and monitors. A few months ago, I wrote an article about converting old computer supplies to regulated 12-volt, 8-amp power supplies. Another thing that the old computer monitors have is a lot of copper wire and capacitors. Around the front of the picture tube is a degaussing coil, which is a coil of wire used for degaussing the picture tube. The hardest thing about getting to it is the tape they use to form the coil. It takes about 15 minutes to unwrap the tape. Once the tape is unwrapped, you need to wind the wire on a spool, so you can use it later. On the back of the picture tube, on the yoke, is a bunch more copper wire, but the way it's formed, you can't get it unwound. There's about a pound of wire on the yoke coils. The best thing to do with it is clean it up the best you can and store it away. Once you get enough of it, you can recycle it. The last time I sold the wire, it was about $2.25 a pound. A plastic grocery shopping bag will hold about 10 pounds. That's enough about that.
There were 34 check-ins to the State-Wide DAREN Net this week. Kendale Peterson, KD8QAK, who has been participating in the net since April 23, 2011, has completed 400 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate. Well, I guess I lied to everyone about getting the DAREN Check-ins Certificates in the hands of those who have waiting for them. I got busy and didn't get time to get the envelopes addressed. That has now been taken care of. The certificates are in my truck and ready to go to the Post Office. I'll be going to town on Wednesday, and they will be placed in the mail. I will try to keep up with check-ins and get the certificates printed up and mailed before I get behind again.