DAREN of WV News November 1, 2020(E78)
(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.
On Thursday during the rain storm, I think we may have had some lightening since something caused one of the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) 2.4 GHz HSMM (High Speed MultiMode) Mesh nodes to go off of the air. The station is located at about 80 feet on the Wood County Fire Radio tower. When we went to the tower site, we found a blackened RJ45 plug on the CAT 5 cable and the jack on the Power Over Ethernet power unit that were burnt. We put a new plug on the cable and replaced the power unit, but the station didn't come back to life. Plans are to replace the antenna, node, cable, and power unit this coming Saturday to get it back on the air. While we are the tower we are planning to install another station at about 30 feet as a back-up station. After trying to repair that station we went to the Parkersburg Amateur Radio Klub (PARK) 146.97 MHz voice repeater site and installed an AREDN node at about 80 feet on that tower. I've been testing that station from different locations, but haven't had the results that I was hoping for. I haven't had time to check the Vienna and Williamstown areas yet to see what it looks like. The station is working, but not in some of the Parkersburg locations that I thought would be good.
I still have several things to get caught up before the snow starts flying. I need to get to the Jackson County NODE/PBBS of JACKWV/RPLYWV and change out the TNC at that station. I think the TNC just lost it's memory. I also need to get check-in certificates for those who have been checking into the State Wide DAREN Net. I'm way behind on getting them out.
I found out this week the Charleston Hamfest, which is usually held in March, has been cancelled for 2021. Since the Parkersburg/Wood County Hamfest isn't scheduled until October, we have plenty of time to see if we will be able to hold it next year.
There were 33 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week.