Wood County
Emergency Communications

Serving Wood County West Virginia and surrounding areas

DAREN News

September 16, 2007                  (.792)

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'.

Tina Clark, K8TAC, the West Virginia ARRL Section Emergency Coordinator, has announced the Simulated Emergency Test (SET) will be held on October 6th.  The starting time of the exercise will be 1:00 pm.  There will be an HF Voice Net opened at that time.  The HF Voice Net frequency will be 3865 kHz.
 
The Wood County Emergency Communications (WCEC) group will be participating in a Safety Fair on October 6th, starting at about 10:00 am.  WCEC will also be participating in the SET.  An ARES DAREN Chatroom Packet Net will be in operation as soon as the Safety Fair gets started and our Mobile Communications vehicle is parked at the event.  Anyone wanting to check into the Chatroom net is welcome to connect, and pass any traffic they might have.  The Chatroom net is a good way to have a secondary facility to pass your traffic, if you have trouble participating in the 3865 kHz HF net.  The Chatroom Net is just like any other controlled net.  The NCS will acknowledge you into the net and direct you to send your traffic.  When you connect into the Chatroom Net, be sure to list any traffic that you have, so the NCS will know where to direct your traffic.  Once you are in the net, please stay in there, unless you have to leave, but be sure to let the NCS know that you are leaving.  If you leave the Chatroom using the "/EX", the NCS, and all others on the net will know that you have left, but if you just force a disconnect, no one will know you're gone. Let's have some fun with the Chatroom net and see if we can make it work for emergency use.  The NCS Callsign for the net will be WC8EC.
 
Tina Clark, K8TAC, is also looking for some Emergency Coordinators and District Emergency Coordinators for the ARRL ARES system in West Virginia.  Here is a list of counties that she needs Emergency Coordinators for:  Barbour, Boone, Calhoun, Clay, Fayette, Grant, Lewis, Logan, Mason, McDowell, Mingo, Nicholas, Monroe, Pleasants, Tyler, Webster, Wetzel, Wirt, and Wyoming.  The District Emergency Coordinators she is looking for is: District 5 and District 8.  If you would like to assume one of the positions contact Tina so she can get you on the list.  The only requirement for being an EC or DEC is to be an ARRL member.  She would also like to have a monthly report sent in for your county and district.  Tina's E-Mail is: ta.clark@suddenlink.net
 
There were 64 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net.  Randy Thomas, K8KHW, who's been participating in the net since February 13, 1999, has completed 300 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate.  Francis Hughes, WD8DEP, needs only one more check-in to make 100.  There was one station that checked into the net on Saturday at about 9:26 pm, with the callsign "NOCALL-14".  The -14 tells me the operator went through two NODEs to reach the Net Control Station.  If you checked into the net on Saturday, but don't see your callsign on this week's Net Announcement, and think it may have been your check-in, let me know so that I can correct your check-in records.