DAREN of WV News June 23, 2019(E07)
(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.
Well, it's over for another year. Did you have a good time and was your Field Day a success? Our group had a great time and a lot of good food. Although after the sun went down Saturday evening, I thought it going to snow. It got downright cold. I forgot to bring a jacket, but we had extra blankets that we were able to wrap up in and keep on operating. We also had a large bonfire which we were able to get up from our operating positions for a while and set in front of. Even though we had five stations on the air, we didn't make a lot of points. A lot of our time was spent on training, like learning how to set up antennas, stations, the logging network, and power arrangements. This year we had all of the stations together under one of our 24 by 40-foot canopies with the operating positions set up in a U shape. Setting up this way was a learning experience, but well worth it. By setting up all the stations in one location kept us from having to run all over the place working out problems. We had enough coax to have most of the antennas at least 100 feet from the operating stations. We had a little interference, but I think we can eliminate that next year. We used the three rotatable 20 Meter and one 15 Meter antennas that we built the week before. It was great not having to do any tuning of the antennas, since the Standing Waves were from 1.1 to 1.2 to 1 across the whole band, and they worked. We didn't have any luck with the wind generator. The only time we saw it running was Friday evening when a storm went through the area. Since Saturday and Sunday were very sunny, the solar panel put out the power. During most of the daylight hours the panels were putting out anywhere from 5 Amps to 22 Amps, and there were plenty of batteries to store the energy. All our CW and PSK31 contacts were powered by sunlight and batteries. After we worked out our problems this year, I think next year will be even better with the new layout.
There were 34 check-ins to the Statewide DAREN Net this week. Anna Hendershot, KC8JWW, needs only one more check-in to make 1100. Randy Thomas, K8KHW, needs only one more check-in to make 750. And, Remington Sweitzer, KB3TXG, needs only one more check-in to make 300. There was one new station that checked into the net this week and that was W8PAR, the PARK (Parkersburg Amateur Radio Klub). That was the callsign they were using for Field Day, and Conard Richarson, KE8HLU, had the Packet Station set up at the PARK FD site.