DAREN of WV News October 18, 2020(E76)
(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 received a couple E-Mails this week from Randy McGill, N7WWA. The first E- Mail Randy said the water tank where the Mason County DAREN NODE/PBBS of MASOWV/PTPLWV is located is being decommissioned and possibly removed so the NODE/PBBS needs to be moved. They are planning to move it to the same tower as the MCARG 442.400 MHz repeater. The site is located on Redmond Ridge, southwest of Henderson, WV. The second E-Mail said they moved the NODE/PBBS, but the transceiver seems to have died. The transceiver was about 20 years old. They are hoping to get another one so they can get the station back on the air. So MASOWV/PTPLWV will be off the air for awhile.
Last week I talked about some locations that we looked at to install some more Nodes for the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) 2.4 GHz HSMM (High Speed MultiMode) Mesh system. On Thursday, Conard Richardson, KE8HLU, and I installed a Node at the Miller Communications tower site. We only placed it at about 30 feet. We didn't have the right kind of hardware to mount it on the main tower. Conard is able to connect from his house to the Miller site. He has been sitting up the computer links to his DAREN Packet station. I've been playing around connecting to his WAVEWV PBBS. His WAVEWV system also is an interface to the regular Internet. He will be figuring out how to set his HSMM station to allow users to transmit and receive on Packet Radio. When it is sit up anyone who can connect into the HSMM system, will have access to the DAREN system. After we finished up installing the station at the Miller tower, I went to the Parkersburg Amateur Radio Klub (PARK) 147.39 MHz voice repeater tower site and changed out the homemade antenna on the HSMM with the commercial antenna. The Node on the PARK tower is located at about 60 feet on their 70 foot tower. By changing out that antenna made a big difference in the system. Since we have been working on the HSMM some of the local Amateurs are getting more interested and are starting to get involved. Sammy Mercer, N8SVX, has sit up a chatroom type system on the Red Hill Fire Tower site. It's kind of fun working with the system. I'm planning to make a trip to the Jackson County NODE/PBBS of JACKWV/RPLYWV to change out the TNC. That will get Jackson County back on the air, and have it ready for the Kanawha County station when it comes back on line.
There were only 27 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. Jeff Boden, KJ4YYA, who has been participating in the net since February 9, 2019, has completed 50 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate as soon as I can get started printing them again. Kendale Peterson, KD8QAK, needs only one more check-in to make 500. And, Jeffrey Hensley, WD4VA, needs only one more check-in to make 400.