DAREN of WV News January 6, 2019(D83)
(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 hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. Now that the new year is here, it's time to start thinking about the activities that will be coming this spring and summer. One of the biggest events this summer is Field Day. Did you make notes of what went well, and what didn't go so well last year? I've been working on some of the things that we can make go better this year. We're going to try a different layout at our Field Day site this year. In the past we have had trailers, tents, and canopies spread out on the site. This year we are going to place all of the stations under one large canopy with the stations side by side in a U shape. It will have some disadvantages since there will be audio noises from the different stations, which means headsets may be needed. The antennas will be placed about the same location, which means long runs of coax. The long runs shouldn't be much problem for the HF stations, since there won't be that much signal loss. Some of the advantages will be less power supplies needed. We usually have a power supply and one or two batteries used as a buffer battery at each station. Now all the stations can share the same power source. The batteries can be placed all along a power buss cable, with taps for any equipment operating on 12 volts. All of the stations can be seen by all of the other operators, which means no station should be left unattended. All of the logging computers can be tied together using a common server computer, and less interconnecting cables, or wireless devices to tie them together. If someone needs help with a station, the maintenance people won't have to travel all over the Field Day site to work on problems. It sounds good in theory, now to see if we can make it work.
Last week I said that Conard Richardson, KE8HLU, has been putting together a Packet Radio to Internet system. He is still working some problems out of the system, but has it working pretty well. It's not on the air on as a permanent station yet, but he puts it on the air from time-to-time. I have sent myself messages from the DAREN system to my E-Mail address, and back to the DAREN system, and it works great. He's trying to make it look as close as possible to the DAREN PBBSs as he can, but there are some small differences. When I first connected to the station, it was very easy to work through the system. He has named the system WAVEWV, for Waverly, where he lives, and it can be accessed through the RITCWV and WOODWV nodes. If you happen to play with the system, and find any problems, let him know.
There were 31 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Jeffrey Hensley, WD4VA, who has been participating in the net since August 27, 2011, has completed 350 check-ins, and will be receiving his certificate. I want to welcome Timothy Stout, KC8QWV, from Rachel, WV, to the net. I hope Timothy can participate in the net and use the DAREN system as often as possible.