January 7, 2007 (.756)
Kenneth Harris WA8LLM (304) 679-3470 wa8llm@yahoo.com
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, P.O. BOX 3328, PARKERSBURG, WV 26103 http://www.wc8ec.com
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 A State Wide DAREN NET is operated every Saturday from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. DAREN Net Announcements, 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'.
I know the DAREN News is going to be a little late getting out this week since I'm still trying to get the portable telephone system ready for a Table Top exercise which will be on Tuesday. The telephone system will have 10 telephones that will be connected to a manual operator type switchboard. To keep from running wires to each of the telephones, I'll be using 2.4 GHz cordless phones, and hope they don't interfere with each other. We tested part of the system last Tuesday at our Emergency Communications meeting and it seemed to work okay, but the bases for the cordless phones were spread out over one of the tables. When I'm finished, all of the bases will be mounted on a stand-up board with 5 phones on each side. That is the part of the system that I still have to build.
We had a Packet Class yesterday at the Wood County E-911 center. There were 14 people in the class. Most of them were local, and most of them have been on Packet but wanted to learn more about it. One of those taking the class was Shane Harper, KD8BMX, from Elkins, Randolph County, who came over to Wood County just to take the class. Shane said he's been interested in learning about Packet, but didn't know where to get the information. The class usually takes about six hours starting with the background and make up of Packet protocol, which takes about three hours. The second three hours is hands on by actually programming one of eight TNCs and operating them through an artificial radio system which is designed to simulate being on the air.
There were 65 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Bob Hanson, KB8QKY, who's been participating in the net since July 8, 1995, has completed 500 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate. Roy Humes, N8RH, needs only one more check-in to make 500. There were three stations that checked into the net this week, one with the callsign of "NOCALL-13", and the other two with the callsigns of "CALL-14" and "CALL-15". The "NOCALL-13" station, which connected to the NCS, looked like it had went through three NODEs, to get to the NCS. One of the stations with the callsign of "CALL-14" which connected to the NCS, looks like it went through two NODEs to get to the NCS. The callsign of "CALL-15" connected to the NCS through one NODE, and then digipeaed through three digipeaters, which were: OHIOWV, MONOWV, and RITCWV. If you were any of these stations, or know who they were, please let me know so that I can give you or them credit for the check-in. There was one new station that checked into the net this week, and that was Lynn DeHart, KB3FN, from Allegany County, Maryland. Lynn and I have been E-Mailing back and forth for a few weeks and I see he finally made it into the net. I welcome Lynn to the DAREN system and hope he participates as often as he can. Lynn asked me if I could post the DAREN News on their PBBS in Maryland. I'm going to give it a try, once I get the News typed up.