March 2, 2008 (.816)
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, or to my E-Mail: wa8llm@yahoo.com. A State Wide DAREN NET is operated every Saturday from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, and lately, before and after those hours. The DAREN Net Announcement, 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 DAREN News can also be found on the wc8ec.com website.
I got a couple of E-Mails about two exercises that will be coming up, one in May and another one in June. The first exercise is NLE2-08 (National Level Exercise 2-08), and the second one is called CWID 2008. It's not the same CWID that we think of when we hear our repeater, it stands for Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration. The scenario for the May 7th exercise will be a category 4 hurricane named Zoe which makes landfall and reduces to a category 3 when it reaches Washington DC. The exercise will run from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and the state of West Virginia will have the State Emergency Operations Center opened and manned during the exercise. All West Virginia counties are invited to participate. The June CWID-08 exercise is sponsored by the Department of Defense and will have two parts. The first part will be a "Walk Through" exercise which will be conducted June 9th and 10th. The second part will be a "Full Scale/Functional" exercise held June 16th and 17th. The exercise is a communications interoperability exercise with the focus on a mass migration of the Washington DC area. This sounds like the same exercise that we involved in on October 6, 2007, during our ARRL Simulated Emergency Test. The only difference is this one will be a two day event. All West Virginia counties are invited to participate. All County Emergency Management Agencies (EMA) are aware of these exercises, and may, or may not, ask for Amateur Radio participation. If you're interested in participating in either one or both of these exercises, you should contact your county EMA Office and show your support. Now would be a good time to test some of our communication assets, both voice and packet. If anyone wants additional information about these exercises send me your E-Mail address and I will forward the information that I have.
There were 63 check-ins to this week's State Wide DAREN Net. Bob Tuckerman, W3RUA, who's been participating in the net since December 18, 1993, has completed 650 check-ins. Vickie Woods, KD8ANW, who's been participating in the net since November 20, 2004, has completed 50 check-ins. Both of these operators will be receiving their certificate. I've been able to get my computer operational enough to get certificates printed up. So for those who have been waiting for their certificate, they should be in the mail tomorrow. I still have a few things wrong with the computer, but at least it's workable.