DAREN of WV News February 23, 2020(E42)
(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 about Packet, or the DAREN system to write about. I've been working on projects that may make a few other systems possible. Some of the Amateurs in the area are making plans on going to the Charleston Hamfest on March 14th. I'm not looking for anything special, but it seems as if something will catch my eye. I might be able to talk to some of the other Amateurs and try to get them interested in Packet Radio. Packet operations have slowed down, so we need to get more people interested. With soundcard programs available it doesn't take much to get involved with Packet. I know the cost of the TNC (Terminal Node Controller) have went up in price over the past several years and makes it hard to purchase them. When Packet stations go on hilltop and mountaintops, they are at the mercy of the weather such as lightening. At one time there were 34 out of 55 counties in West Virginia that had a main hilltop or mountaintop stations, but over time the stations were weather damaged and never got replaced.
Plans are still going on with the new tower that Wood County Emergency Communications is installing. The tower still needs to go up three more sections. The group is building a four pole VHF loop antenna that will be the main back-up transmitter antenna. It will be placed at the very top of the 90-foot tower. The only difference in the four-pole loop antenna is the loops. Instead of being 1/2 wave vertical loop elements, the elements will be full wave quad loops. The elements will be located at 90 degrees around the aluminum vertical pole, and all at the same level. We're not for sure how it's going to work, but we are going to give it a try. If the system works, we're going to make the same kind of system for the UHF band and will be mounted on the same vertical pole as the VHF system. I'll keep you posted on how things work. I haven't given up on the DAREN stations that are off the air. I'm still planning to get some of the DAREN stations, that I'm responsible for back on as soon as I can. I've just been busy since the first of the year, I have several projects that I'm working on.
There were 31 check-ins to the Statewide DAREN Net this week.