April 01, 2007 (.768)
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'.
Starting this coming Wednesday, and for the next five Wednesdays, I'll be working with the Mid Ohio Valley Region Health Department maintenance personnel installing Two Meter Voice and Packet Stations at each of their five offices in Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, and Wirt Counties. The first one will be at the Calhoun office in Grantsville. As soon as we get all five of the county offices equipped with Amateur Radios, I need to get at least one person in each of those offices licensed to operate the radios until they can be relieved by Amateur Radio operators in their local area. The main office in Parkersburg already has the voice and packet stations installed. The ALIAS for each of the packet stations will end with the letters "HD", (Health Department). The packet station at the Parkersburg office has the ALIAS of "PKBGHD" for the PBBS, and the ALIAS of "WOODHD" for the NODE.
While I was getting the Calhoun County Packet station ready to go, I stumbled on to something about the Kantronics KPC-3 Plus Version 9.0. A few years ago while I was at the Dayton Hamfest, I got to talk to Phil Karn, KA9Q, who was or is an engineer at Kantronics. I told him I liked the KPC-3, but I would like to be able to have more then one station connect to the PBBS, or Mailbox, at a time. While setting up the Parameters on the Calhoun County station I found a Parameter I had never seen before. It is called PBUSERS. I did a little reading and playing and found that you can set up as many as 10 connects to the PBBS at a time. I set the Calhoun County PBBS up for five connects. I used five stations and connected into the PBBS. While the five stations were connected I was able to post messages from one station, and read them from another. It was great to be able to do that. It's always been a problem posting a message, while another station was trying to read one. Now messages can be posted by one station, and read by another at the same time. I would like to replace the KPC-3 at the Kanawha County NODE first, since that is where most of the emergency messages will be sent. Once it get changed out, you shouldn't get a "LINK BUSY" when you try to connect to it, and have to wait and try again later.
I got an E-Mail from Tina Clark, K8TAC, the West Virginia ARRL SEC (Section Emergency Coordinator), asking if the Amateurs would like to hold another State Wide Simulated Emergency Test like t I've already told her I would like to see another one. If you're interested in another SET, you might send her a message. Her E-Mail is: ta.clark@suddenlink. There were 72 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. John Peterson, participating in the net since September 23, 1994, has completed 650 check-ins, and will be receiving his certificate. My son Kevin Harris, KC8OXY, ne more check-in to make 350. There was one station that checked into the net with the callsign of "NOCALL-13". The "NOCALL" station checked in at about 9:30 pm on Saturday. If you don't see your callsign on this week's State wide DAREN Net Announcement, and think it may be yours, let me know so that I can update your check-in participation. There was one new station that checked into the net this week, and that was Alexander Wine, KC8ZWU, from Orlando, WV. I want to welcome Alexander to the DAREN system and hope that he will participate as often as possible.