DAREN of WV News August 16, 2020(E67)
(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 State Wide 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.
After we got the official okay to install the HSMM (High Speed Multimedia) 2.4 GHz system node on one of the county fire towers this week, it was installed on Wednesday, at about 80 feet. At 80 feet it has a line of site path to the node at my house which is located at 110 feet, 3.8 miles away. After getting off the tower and doing some testing, we were shocked to see there was no signals. Also there was no signal to, or from, the node at Joe Thomas, N8MEV's house which is at about 70 feet up the PARK (Parkersburg Amateur Radio Klub) 147.39 MHz voice repeater tower, which is about 1.35 miles away. While doing some testing with a portable station on the ground, we are able to work the fire tower node, but that station doesn't see anything else. On the ground below the tower, and using the portable station, and a 20 foot piece of pipe, we are able to work the node at my house. We think there may be some kind of problem with the node/antenna combination on the county fire tower. We didn't have time to go back up the tower to swap out the station. We did have plans to swap out the combination yesterday, but the rain stopped that project. We are planning to install another node on the same tower, but it will only be up about 30 feet. If the weather is good enough Tuesday, I'll try to get that station installed.
I still need to find some time to get the State Wide DAREN Net certificates printed up for those who have been waiting. I hope I don't have to wait for the snow to start falling to find the time.
There were 30 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Roy Humes, N8RH, needs only one more check-in to make 1200. And, Julie Paugh, KB3URS, needs only one more check-in to make 250.