Wood County
Emergency Communications

Serving Wood County West Virginia and surrounding areas

DAREN News

November 11, 2007                  (.800)

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'.

For the past couple of weeks I've noticed a problem with the Wetzel County NODE/PBBS of WETZWV/NMARWV.  I thought that it may have been hit by lightening since it seemed to be off the air the day after a storm came through the area. The station seems to be okay early in the morning, but during the day, it's not operational.  We had a problem like that awhile back, but it seemed to have cleared itself, but it looks like it's back.
 
The Pendleton County NODE/PBBS of PENDWV/FKLNWV had a problem last week.  I tried to connect to it, but it didn't answer.  Gene Roy, N8ER, sent me a message about the station.  He didn't know what the problem was, but at the same time, the Two Meter Voice repeater, at the same site was off the air.  I got another message from Gene yesterday that said both the voice repeater and the DAREN NODE/PBBS was back in operation.  Gene thinks it may have been the power line up the mountain that may have tripped a breaker.  He says there needs to be some sort of warning device when the power fails so we can get them up there quicker.  He says the government radios, at that site, will run off of a generator until someone reports the power outage.  The only ones that usually report a power outage are Rick Gilsipy, N8HON, or himself.
 
Last week I talked about a communications exercise that will be held here in Wood County on Saturday, December 8th.  I'm getting a little more information about the exercise.  The exercise will be operated from 8 am to 4 pm.  Here is a list, so far, of groups and/or organizations that said they were going to participate by bringing their communications vehicle:  The WV and OH Offices of Emergency Services, the Kanawha County Emergency Services, the Washington County, OH, Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard 35th Civil Support Team, out of Charleston, the 52nd Civil Support Team out of Columbus, OH, and one another Military Team that I'm not for sure of.  I was told the National Weather Service is also going to participate.  I've forwarded E-Mails from Jim Rose, the organizer of the event, to as many E-Mail addresses that I could come up with.  We need to get as much Amateur Radio participation as possible.
(The rest of this information will be continued next week)
 
There were 53 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net.  Joe Peterson, N8DSN, who's been participating in the net since March 26, 1994, has completed 650 check-ins and will be receiving his certificate.  There was one station that checked into the net with the Callsign of (CALL-15).  On my back-up log that station also tried to connect to "OHIOWV" while already connect to the NCS.  If you don't see your Callsign on this coming week's Net Announcement, and think it may have been you, let me know so that I can correct your check-in records.  I won't tell anyone who it was, we all make mistakes.  I finally got the certificates printed up for those have been waiting for them.  I plan on putting them in the mail on Tuesday, since tomorrow is Veterans Day Holiday, and the mail won't be going out.  I also want to thank all of the Veterans who have served our country.