DAREN of WV News November 18, 2018(.D76)
(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.
Since there's not much to report about the DAREN system, I thought I'd pass on some more information about building and repairing electronic equipment. For those who still build electronic projects, how many of you use printed boards to put the projects on? My nephew, Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, and I have been building a lot of printed circuit board projects. We've been using a computer program that is supposed to be used for making greeting cards. The program is called American Greetings CreatACard by Broderbund. The program is great for laying out the printed circuit boards since it can make lines, shapes, and of course letters. You must make your own drawings of components and experiment with the spacing of the components and the size of lines you want to use. After laying out the circuit, we print it out on a laser printer using plastic transparency paper. Make sure you use the transparency paper for laser printers. The print from a laser printer is a very fine plastic dust that sticks to the transparency due to heat in the printing process. If you place the transparency paper on the printed circuit board and use an iron, the type you iron clothes with, the print on the transparency will stick to the printed circuit board. The iron won't melt the plastic transparency paper. Once the board cools down, you just need to pull the transparency paper away from the printed circuit board material. If all the print doesn't transfer to the printed board, you can use a permanent marker pin to correct any missing lines or printing. Sammy and I found out that you don't need to use an etching solution such as Ferric Chloride to etch the printed board. You can use a combination of one-part Muriatic Acid and two parts Hydrogen Peroxide. These materials are a lot easier to acquire and a lot cheaper. You can get the Muriatic Acid at a Lowes store for about seven dollars a gallon, and the Hydrogen Peroxide is dollar for a quart at a Dollar Tree store. When Radio Shack was still in business you could get the Ferric Chloride for about 10 dollars a pint. From making several printed circuit boards I have found that using four ounces of Hydrogen Peroxide and two ounces of Muriatic Acid will etch about 25 square inches of board in about 10 minutes. After the board is etched, you just need to clean off the black plastic print from it. Removing the print can be done by using Acetone, which can also be purchased at a Lowes store.
There were 36 check-ins to the State-Wide DAREN Net this week.