DAREN of WV News October 11, 2020(E75)
(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.
It was a quiet week as far as Packet Radio and the DAREN system. The DAREN system hasn't been forgot about, we're just been busy experimenting and building. A few of the Amateurs in the Wood County area have been busy working on the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) 2.4 GHz HSMM (High Speed MultiMode) Mesh system before the leaves are all off the trees. Wednesday, Joe Thomas, N8MEV, and I drove around the Parkersburg/Vienna area looking for possible antenna sites for the system. We found a few locations that look like they would be good NODE sites. One real good location is a tower site owned by Tim Miller, WB8OMI, the owner of Miller Communications. Tim has given us permission to install a NODE at the tower site which is located in northern Vienna. A portable test NODE, that we were using has a very good path to the main hub of the system. The main hub NODE is over 13 miles away, on one of the county fire radio towers. The portable test setup was also seen by at the home station owned by Conard Richardson, KE8HLU, which is in a location we didn't think there would be a path. Plans are to install a NODE at the Miller site, and change out the antenna at another site this coming Thursday. Yesterday Conard took my portable test setup to his dads house, Phil, KE8GCL, in south Parkersburg. At between 12 to 15 feet above the ground they were able to see the main hub node which is about 5 miles away. If a NODE gets installed at Phil's location there should be a large coverage area in south Parkersburg. With all of the testing that we've been doing over the summer, it gives us an idea that we may be able to have HSMM service throughout the county. For a little more information the AREDN system, it operates just below the regular WiFi 2.4 GHz frequencies on channel -2 which is 2.397 GHz. A lot of information about AREDN can be found on the internet, just search for AREDN.
There were 34 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Judy Peterson, N8UFQ, who has been participating in the net since October, 31, 1992, has completed 1450 check-ins. Mike Tyler, WA8YWO, who has been participating in the net since December 21, 1996, has completed 200 check-ins. Both of these operators will be receiving their certificates. Jeff Boden, KJ4YYA, needs only one more check-in to make 50. There was one new participate to the net this week, and that was Lisa Wright, KE8PPS, of Parkersburg. I want to welcome Lisa to the DAREN system and hope she uses the DAREN system and participates in the net as often as she can.