DAREN of WV News September 20, 2020(E72)
(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.
I'm glad this last two weeks are over. I haven't had much time to do anything with either the DAREN system, or the 2.4 GHz HSMM (High Speed MultiMode) Mesh system. Last week I was busy all week getting the equipment ready for the High School/Middle School Cross Country foot races, on Saturday the 12th, and this past week I spent a lot of time getting everything ready for the One Day Technician Class radio class that was held yesterday. We had 17 people who took the class yesterday, and 14 of them passed the exams, and will be getting their licenses. Three of those who took, and passed, their Technician exam tried for their General Class, but weren't successful.
The group working with the 2.4 GHz HSMM (High Speed MultiMode) Mesh system has came to the conclusion the HSMM system needs to have good antennas that have a lot of gain and are as high as possible on the tower. We have been building and testing different type antennas and may have came up with one that we hope will work. We have built an antenna that has a 1.1:1 SWR, and an impedance of 48 or 49 Ohms, and is supposed to have a 9db gain. Tomorrow we are going to replace one of the antennas that we've been using and see how it works. If it does good, we want to get as many stations, with the new antenna, as possible up and running before the leaves start to fall off the trees.
I still need to make a trip down to Jackson County to replace the TNC on the NODE/PBBS of JACKWV/RPLYWV. I understand from a meeting that I was involved in the guys in Charleston have got their DAREN station equipment ordered and may have their station back on the air shortly. I need to make sure they have a path to get into the rest of the DAREN system.
We are still waiting to get at lease 100 E-Mails from Amateurs who would like for us to hold the Parkersburg/Wood County Hamfest. So far, we have only received about 15. The deadline is September 30th. I we don't get enough E- Mails, on October 1st we will announce it will be cancelled this year.
There were 30 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. I made a mistake on last week’s news when I said that Michael Turner, K4MIC, needed only one more check-in to make 50. I checked my records and I had typed the wrong number on his records. Michael had his first check-in on February 29th this year. When I typed in his 20th check-in, I hit a 4 instead of a 2. It will be a few more weeks before Michael will have his 50th check-in. Sorry about that Michael.