DAREN of WV News October 20, 2019(E24)
(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 Monday Bill Davidson, N8JXO, dug the holes for the base and anchors of the new 95-foot tower that will be going up. Yesterday the concrete was poured for the base and the anchors. We'll let it set up for about a week and then start erecting the tower. At the time we only have five sections of the tower cleaned up and painted so that's what we'll start with. I've been talking to Conard Richardson, KE8HLU, about what systems will be installed at the site. Since Conard and his father Phil, KE8GCL, have been operating Packet on HF, we decided the tower might be a good place to install 20 Meter and 40 Meter antennas for HF stations. The HF stations will cross-banded to VHF. We're debating on what VHF frequency, or frequencies, to use. Even though we would like to keep the DAREN system for emergency use, we might get more Amateurs interested in operating Packet Radio if we cross-band the HF station to the DAREN systems. I'd like to get some thoughts and ideas from those who are already active on DAREN. We have a couple Kantronics KPC-4 TNCs that can be used to do the cross-banding. All we need to do is get a couple HF transceivers, and we may already have them available.
Friday, October 25, WCEC (Wood County Emergency Communications) needs to take both their 24 by 40 canopies, all of their tables, and their chairs to one of the local racetracks for a benefit event on Saturday, October 26th. Unless they get a telephone call about any other events, this should be the last activity they will be involved with this year.
There were only 29 check-ins to the Statewide DAREN Net this week. Judy Peterson, N8UFQ, needs only one more check-in to make 1400, and her son Kendale, KD8QAK, needs only one more check-in to make 450. Jeffrey Holstein, K8JMH, needs only on more check-in to make 100.