DAREN of WV News August 23, 2020(E68)
(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.
Yesterday, Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, and I went back to the Wood County Red Hill Fire Tower site to work on the HSMM (High Speed Multimedia) 2.4 GHz system node at 80 feet. We tested several different stations that were located on a mast pipe at about 20 foot on the ground below the tower. After we found a good station, we changed it out with the station at 80 feet. We now have a path between the fire tower and the station at my house. The path isn't the best but now we have something to work with. The omni-directional antennas that we built for the system work okay, but we need to re-engineer them. The antennas are made were designed to work in the middle of the regular WiFi frequencies. We need to build some antennas that are made for the HSMM frequency which is a little bit below the WiFi frequencies. When we get the new antennas built, and working, I'll change the ones at 30 feet and 80 feet on the fire tower to see if we can get better paths. I'm thinking about mounting a dish antenna on the tower at my house to see if that will help the paths. Working on this system has been taking up quite a bit of my time, but we need to do it in the summer when the leaves are on the trees. If we established the paths in the winter, the system may have problems in the spring and summer when the leaves are back on the trees again.
There were 32 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Julie Paugh, KB3URS, who has been participating in the net since November 24, 2012, has completed 250 check-ins and will be receiving her certificate as soon as I can find the time to get them printed up for all those who have been waiting.