DAREN of WV News September 27, 2009 (.898)
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.
Did anyone have a problem checking into the State Wide DAREN Net yesterday? Have you been reading the DAREN News, or looking at the State Wide DAREN Net Announcements for the last two or three weeks? Or, did you just have problems connecting to the Preston County NODE of PRESWV? I'm sure that if you read the News or saw the Net Announcements that you knew the Net Control Station was located at the Buckwheat Festival in Kingwood, WV, during their Special Event Station activity. I hope that I'm not wasting my time writing the DAREN News and posting the DAREN Net Announcement every week. The State Wide DAREN Net isn't always going to be located in Wood County, but could be located anywhere in the state. It's good practice to connect to different NODEs and PBBSs in the state. That way you will know what paths and stations are available if you need them.
Shane Harper, KD8BMX, wanted to give some information about the upcoming Forest Festival. The Festival will be held on October 3rd at Elkins in Randolph County. Amateur Radio operators will be used to provide some of the Safety Communications at the parade. He would like for any of Amateurs who will be coming to see the parade, to check into the Parade Net Control Station on 146.46 MHz Simplex. No CTCSS tone is required on the net frequency. They would just like to have some idea of where you are at in case you need to report some kind of incident.
The Parkersburg Hamfest will be held in a couple of weeks on October 10th. If you need additional information about the Hamfest, connect to the Wood County Emergency Communications website: www.wc8ec.com or contact me at (304) 679-3470 by telephone, or on the Internet at wa8llm@yahoo.com.
Larry Slagle, KB8CVP, sent me a report of the stations that were able to find their way to the State Wide DAREN NCS yesterday. He reported there were 47 stations that got checked in. I had set up one of my packet stations to monitor the frequency and download a file of stations trying to get connected. I observed 18 additional stations were trying to get connected to the NCS at the Buckwheat Festival. They were also given credit for participating in the net even though they didn't get connected to the NCS in Preston County. Bill Wagner, N8RSM, who's been participating in the net since May 28, 1994, has completed 450 check-in and will be receiving his certificate. Last week I had reported that Bill needed only one more check-in to make 500, I was mistaken. There was one new station that checked into the net this week, and that was Lisa Cress, KC8PRO, from Kingwood. She must have stopped by the Special Event Station at the Buckwheat Festival. I hope that Lisa gets involved with Packet Packet Radio and starts checking into the net on a regular basis. There was one station that was trying to check into the net last night with the Callsign of "REMOTE". I saw the same station try last week, but forgot to mention in the News. If you haven't seen your callsign for the past couple of weeks on State Wide DAREN Net Announcement, and think it my be yours, let me know so that I can update your participation records and give you the credit you deserve.