December 09, 2007 (.804)
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'.
While posting the DAREN News and Net Announcement last week, I saw
the new Greenbrier County NODE/PBBS of GREEWV/FAIRWV on the air. I
was glad to see Joe Forren, ND4B, get the station in operation. We
now have a good path again into that area of the state. I want to
thank Joe for participating in the DAREN system and helping to make it
grow.
Well, the "I R PHONE HOME" exercise is
over, and there were a lot of lessons learned. We didn't have enough Net
Control Stations to bring up and operate the Mountain State Emergency
Net, so all we could do was monitor the 3865 KHz frequency and hope to
make a call once in awhile to see if anyone was listening. Most of
the time we were going up and down the band about 10 KHz to find an open
spot and make the calls. We didn't get to set up any of our
equipment until the pre-exercise scenario meeting was over, which lasted
until about 10:30. By the time we were in operation we figured we
may have missed some of the stations that were looking for us. I
did check the DAREN Chatroom Net back-up log to see if anyone tried
before we were in operation. The only station that tried to check
in was Ted Jacobson, W8KVK, in Athens OH. He tried to check into
the net about 20 minutes before we were in operation. After we had
the DAREN Chatroom Net in operation, there were no other check-ins.
It was a very good exercise, but we didn't get to check out everything
that we had planned before most of the agencies that participated had to
tear down and head back home.
I don't have a complete list, so here's a partial list of the agencies
and Emergency Service Directors that participated: From West Virginia;
the State Office of Emergency Services Mobile Communications Center, the
35th Civil Support Team Communications Center, Department of Highways,
Wood County Emergency Communications Mobile Communications Center, Civil
Air Patrol, Allegheny Power, Verizon Telephone, Navy/Marine MARS, and
DuPont. There were several County OES Directors, but the only ones
that I spotted right off were from Jackson, Ritchie, and Barbour
counties. I'm sure there were more, but I didn't have time to go
looking for them. From the State of Ohio; there were two Ohio
Highway Patrol, two Sheriff Association Communications vehicles, and a
Washington County OEM Communications trailer. With the scenario
that we were given, had this been an actual incident we would have still
had problems. It was a very good exercise, a very busy day, with
lessons learned.
There were 66 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net.
Robert Klinger, WD8MTN, who's been participating in the net since April
15, 1995, has completed 300 check-ins. Krista Mills, KC8VLJ, who
has been participating in the net since December 28, 2002, has completed
200 check-ins. And, Donnie Woodford, KC8YVR, who's been
participating in the net since November 27, 2004, has completed 150
check-ins. All of these operators will be receiving their
certificates. There were two new operators that participated in
the net this week and they are: Jerry Nelson, KD8HJN, from Parsons, WV,
and Joe Forren, ND4B, from Fairlea, WV, who has installed the new
Greenbrier NODE/PBBS of GREEWV/FAIRWV. I hope that both of these
operators participate as often as they can.