January 21, 2007 (.758)
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 got some information from Jim Stephenson, KE8YB, and Tim Zutaut, KC8PMI. Jim told me that Chris Hatcher, KC8AFH, made a trip to the Raleigh County tower site of NODE/PBBS: RALEWV/BOLTWV, and got it back on the air. Tim told me that Chris also went to the Raleigh/Mercer tower site of the NODE/PBBS and corrected the problem of not being able to connect to the NODE. Before he fixed the problem, you could connect to the PBBS. You could digipeat through the NODE, but you couldn't connect to it. Now the guys in the Southern Part of the state have a couple more NODEs they can use to access the DAREN system. I want to thank Chris for getting the stations up and running.
I got another message this week asking why some NODEs will see more stations on their "NODE Heard List" then others, when the are about the same height and location. The only difference between the stations is that one is using an MFJ Terminal Node Controller (TNC), and the other is a Kantronics TNC. The MFJ TNC is running the firmware of "Thenet", Kantronics TNC uses the firmware of "KANODE". Since the MFJ station uses the "Thenet" firmware, it will only recognize "Thenet" and "Netrom" firmware protocol, when those stations are on the air. The Kantronics "KANODE" firmware doesn't care what kind of firmware other NODEs are using, they will put the callsign of any NODEs that they hear in their NODEs Heard List. The MFJ and some of the other brands of TNCs "WILL" connect to any NODE, no matter what TNC firmware it is running they just won't put the non-Thenet or non-Netrom, callsigns in their NODEs Heard List.
There were 67 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Bub McDowell, W8OO, who's been participating in the net since July 5, 1997, and Anna Hendershot, KC8JWW, who's been participating in the net since May 9, 1998, have both completed 450 check-ins each and will be receiving their certificates. Gene Roy, N8ER, needs only one more check-in to make 700. There was one station that connected to the Net Control Station (NCS), with the callsign of "CALL-12". That's and indication the "CALL-12" station went through four NODEs to get to the NCS. If you connected to the NCS this week by going through four NODEs, don't see your callsign on this week's Net Announcement, and think that it may have been you, let me know so that I can update your participation records.