DAREN of WV News November 8, 2009(.904)
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.
Myself and three other Amateurs, Mark Stull, AB8WV, Jerry Wilson, WV8HAM, and my son Kevin, KC8OXY, went the Ritchie County tower site today to replace a UHF antenna and transmission line that had been damaged by a lightning storm back on May 11th. The tower took a direct hit, which also destroyed the 147.255 MHz voice repeater, the Ritchie County NODE/PBBS of RITCWV/HRVLWV, and the X1J4 Chatroom NODE called DAREN. I had another DAREN NODE back in operation the same day, but I didn't have time to put another Chatroom NODE together. After we got the antenna replace we worked on the Chatroom NODE and got it back in operation. The ALIAS for the new X1J4 Chatroom NODE is now "CHATRM" instead of "DAREN" Since the Chatroom NODE is using the same radio and antenna as the RITCWV NODE, they should both have the same connection paths. If you want to communicate through the Chatroom NODE, all you have to do is connect to "CHATRM". When you get connected you can either type a "U" to see who might already be in the Chatroom, or just type a "T" to go directly in. Whenever you get ready to leave the Chatroom, all you have to do is type a "/EX" on a single line. I wanted to get the Chatroom back in operation so that we can use it for an exercise on December 17th. The exercise will be testing out the operations of the Command Posts of all the hospitals in Region 5, which consists of about eight hospitals. Communications for the morning part of the exercise will be handled by Landline and Cellular Telephone, but the communications for second half of the exercise will be handled by Amateur Radio or whatever radio systems are available. If anyone is interested in helping with the exercise please let me know.
There were 65 check-ins this week's State Wide DAREN Net. I got all of the certificates printed up and mailed out to those who I couldn't hand deliver to. If you didn't get your certificate, let me know. I got an E-Mail back about one that I had messed up. I need to print up a corrected certificate for Bob Klinger, WD8MTN. I must have fat fingered the keyboard while making up his certificate. I showed him having only 250 check-ins instead 350. I still have a couple that I need to hand deliver.