DAREN of WV News November 21, 2021(F33)
(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.
Wednesday I made a trip to the Wetzel County NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV, after the meeting in Tyler County. When I got to the tower site, I noticed the door of the building which the DAREN Packet station is mounted on was wide open. When I looked inside all of the State Police radios and equipment had been removed, and the building was empty. I tried to turn on the lights that were in the building, but they didn't come on. I was afraid the power may have been disconnected from the building. I did hear some hum coming from some kind of relay cabinet in the building, so I hoped the power was still on. I decided to look in the DAREN station cabinet that is mounted on the wall outside. It took awhile to get into the cabinet since the pad lock hadn't been used for a long time, and didn't want to unlock. When I got in the cabinet I saw there was no light on the power supply, and the radio and TNC were both dead. I had a drill with me so I decided to check the receptacle for power. I was happy the drill ran, so I knew the power supply must be bad, and the batteries were dead. I removed all of the equipment and brought it home. I was able to repair the power supply, and only two out of five batteries seem like they may have be able to hold a charge, but I'm afraid to reuse them. I put power to the radio and TNC, and they powered up, but the radio had lost it's memory. I need to program the radio and check it out. I plan on upgrading the TNC with the latest version of software possible and increase the RAM memory. Plans are to replace the old antenna with a new antenna on a 20 foot mast pipe attached to the radio cabinet, and remove the old antenna that is mounted on the tower. It may be a few weeks before I get the station back on the air, but it will be back on as soon as possible.
On the way home from Wetzel County I stopped in St Marys to make a test of the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) HSMM (High Speed MultiMedia) system, since I had heard that Randy Thomas, K8KHW, who lives across the Ohio River in New Port is also playing with AREDN stations. I didn't have any luck seeing his stations. I will contact Randy to make sure his stations are operating with the same parameters.
Just another reminder, the State Wide DAREN Net on the weekend of December 4th will be an SES (Special Event Station). The Callsign for the Net Control Station that weekend will be "W8W" instead "NET". You can connect to the SES from the same paths as the State Wide DAREN Net. You can get a little more information about the SES from the November 7th issue of the DAREN News of WV.
There were 35 check-ins to the State Wide DAREN Net this week. I still need to get ink cartridges for my printer so that I can start printing check-in certificates for those who have been waiting for theirs.