September 02, 2007 (.790)
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'.
Well, I finally made the trip to Wetzel County to work on the NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV. When I got to the site I found that only one radio, and one TNC of the two Packet stations had the power on. The radio of the DAREN station was on, but the TNC wouldn't power up. The TNC of the other Packet station was on, but the radio wouldn't power up. I combined the two stations to get the DAREN station back into operation. The PBBS of NMARWV no longer has 128K of memory like it used to have, but maybe someday in the future I'll try to upgrade it again. I also had to replace the fuse in the power supply and replace three of the batteries. After I got the radio home I was able to get it repaired, but not the TNC. The Wetzel County NODE/PBBS is back in operation, but still needs a little work. The Wood County NODE/PBBS of WOODWV/PKBGWV has been upgraded. On Friday I changed out the Kantronics KPC-3 TNC to a version 9.0. The TNC also has 512K memory, which makes it a large memory PBBS. The biggest improvement in the upgrade is the fact that more than one person at a time is able to connect to the PBBS of PKBGWV. The version 9.0 will allow up to 10 stations to connect to the PBBS, depending on how the parameter is set up. I have set the parameter on the PBBS to allow 5 connections at a time. The PKBGWV PBBS will be taking the place of the PKBGEC PBBS which was hit by lightening on August 5th of last year. The DAREN News and District 3 ARES Bulletins will be posted there.
While I was at the WOODWV/PKBGWV tower site, I also changed the
frequency of the other Packet station at the site, which is no longer
being used. The frequency of the other Packet station is now on
the Automated Packet Reporting System (APRS) frequency of 144.39 MHz I’m
not into APRS yet, but that day will come. Since I don't know much
about the setting of parameters for APRS, I sent Tim Davis, KC8TYK, an
E-Mail to let him know the remote access and passcode. That way he
will be able to set the parameters to meet what they need to be, to make
the station meet the requirements for this area.
Don't forget the monthly DAREN Chatroom Net will be this coming
Thursday, starting at 6:00 pm in parallel with the West Virginia FONE
Net on 3865 kHz, and end at the close of the Mountain State Emergency
Net. Connect to "DAREN" from any NODE that is able to connect to
"RITCWV", since both Nodes are at the same location.
There were 63 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Randy
Thomas, K8KHW, needs only one more check-in to make 300. And Bob
Ott, WB8OIF, needs only one more check-in to make 100. There was
one new station that checked into the net this week, and that was Matt
Wright, KD8GWP, from Parkersburg. I know Matt was with his dad,
Dave, N8NWV, at our Free Coffee Safety Break trailer. Dave must
have been showing Matt how to use Packet Radio. There was one
station that checked into the net this week with the callsign of
NOCALL-14. The station checked into the net on Saturday at about 7:44
pm. The dash 14 tells me the station went through two NODEs to get
to the NCS. I tried to connect back, when I saw it come in, but
was unsuccessful. If you don't see your callsign on this week's
Net Announcement, and think that it may be yours, send me a message so
that I can update your check-in records.