DAREN of WV News February 9, 2020(E40)
(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.
Not much to report this week. This doesn't have much to do with the DAREN system or Packet Radio, but it is about Amateur Radio. On Friday I spent about three hours at Roger Radcliff's, KE8LCM, house playing with an AllStar NODE that he has set up in his home. Roger connected his AllStar NODE to a UHF radio so he could talk through the AllStar system to any other NODEs that are active around the nation, or the world, using his portable Handheld radio around the house. Roger was having a few problems and we started making modifications to his system so he wouldn't have to have a bunch of wires coming out of his radio. We didn't get the system completely rebuilt, but we got a good start on it. I have started putting together a new printed circuit board to reduce the amount of wires and transferring the audio signals. After working on his system, I got to thinking of a way of connecting Packet Radio through the AllStar system. I've ordered some radio-to-Internet equipment and will start doing some experimenting when I get time. By using the AllStar Internet system, we may be able to expand the DAREN system to other parts of the state that doesn't have direct access to any DAREN Nodes. I don't know much about interfacing radios to the Internet, but I know there are several Amateurs who can do it. If anyone has ideas of how to interface Packet Radio to the Internet or AllStar, maybe you can come up with a plan on how to do it. If we can get such a system to work, maybe we can get the DAREN system to grow again. I know the Internet isn't Amateur Radio, and can go down during some disasters and emergencies, but it is another tool that may be used during those events. Give it a thought.
There were 35 check-ins to the Statewide DAREN Net this week.