DAREN of WV News May 12, 2019(E01)
(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 Statewide 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.
On Friday, May 10th, I met with Duane Jones, N8LDM, from the 911 Center, at the Wood County tower site. We didn't check to see what was wrong with the Wood County NODE/PBBS of WOODWV/PKBGWV station, we just changed it out. I wasn't concerned why it was off the air. I was going to change it out any way since it has been having problems in the winter. When the temperature would get down to about 30 degrees it would go off the air. The new station is a 100-watt Motorola transceiver with a Kantronics KPC-3 Plus and 9.1 Version Software, 512K of memory, and can allow five stations to connect to the PBBS at the same time. After I left the Wood County site, I went to the Wirt County site to see why it went back off the air just a couple days after we adjusted the transmit audio. When I got to the site, I found the transceiver had changed channels, and was no longer on the 145.69 MHz channel. I put it back on Channel 69 where it should be and everything was okay. I'm still trying to figure out how the channel got changed. I have a feeling that the power may have taken a drop and caused it to default back to Channel 1. If that keeps up, I may have to program Channel 1 as the DAREN frequency. I still need to put together two more stations and go to the Wetzel County and Roane County tower sites and get them back on the air.
I saw that Jim Woodford, KC8MLK, got checked into the Statewide DAREN Net this week. I'm glad to see that he is out of the hospital and back on the air.
There were only 27 check-ins to the Statewide DAREN Net this week. Donnie Woodford, KC8YVR, who's been participating in the net since November 27, 2004, has completed 700 check-ins. Terry Mills, KC8TUE, who has been participating in the net since October 19, 2002, has completed 800 check-ins. Both operators will be receiving their certificates.