August 05, 2007 (.786)
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'.
The first monthly ARES Chat Room Net was held on Thursday during the West Virginia FONE Net, and the Mountain State Emergency Net. The only two stations on the net was myself and John Western, KC8ODI. We were connected for almost an hour and didn't have any disconnect problems. John went through just two NODEs to get to the Chat Room. I was pretty sure that most stations in West Virginia would be able to connect to the Chat Room with no more than two hops. The Chat Room will stay up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you can use the system for any round table conversations you want to use it for. During the ARRL Simulated Emergency Test to be held on October 6th, I'll be connected to the Chat Room as an alternate path of communications for the HF Nets that will be operated. On the September ARES Chat Room Net, I would like to pass some NTS type traffic, to see how it will work. But, you don't have to wait till the next net, give it a try any time.
For the past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to connect to the Wetzel County NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV. I have talked to Bill Wetzel, WD5GKE, who lives in New Martinsville about the problem. Bill said that he will make a trip to the Wetzel County tower site and let me know what he finds. I may have to make a trip to the site to see what might be wrong. It's possible the station may have been hit by lightening, the commercial power may be off, or the power supply may be defective. As soon as I hear from Bill, I'LL try to get what we need to fix the problem, and get it back on the air.
I received a message form Ted Jacobson, W8KVK, with an idea of how to identify the PBBS which is associated with a main county NODE. Since the ALIAS for the NODE uses the first four letters of the county, followed by the state abbreviation, you can work your way around the DAREN system without the use of a map, but the ALIAS of the PBBSs is a little different. Ted's idea is add the PBBS ALIAS at the end of the NODE Text for each station. The Node Text for each station would look something like this:
A WOOD COUNTY NODE OFTHE DIGITAL AMATEUR RADIO "EMERGENCY" NETWORK OF WV EMERGENCY, PRIORITY, NTS TYPE TRAFFIC ONLY PLEASE (PBBS=PKBGWV)
I'm not for sure if there's enough memory in the in the NODE Text parameter to add the additional information, we may have to re-word the NODE Text a little bit to make it fit. In any case it's a good idea since we're trying to increase the use of the DAREN system for handling NTS type traffic.
There were 63 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Jerry Arnold, NQ8B, who's been participating in the net since November 7, 1992, has completed 650 check-ins. Jim Woodford, KC8MLK, who's been participating in the net since February 7, 2004, has completed 150 check-ins. Both of these operators will be receiving their certificates as soon as I get my certificate computer repaired.