DAREN NEWS (00-01-09)

=============================================================================== D.A.R.E.N. NEWS of WV. January 9, 2000 (.391) by Ken Harris WA8LLM (304) 679-3470 (HOME) or 428-9980 (WORK) WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, P.O. BOX 3328, PARKERSBURG, WV 26103 D.A.R.E.N. 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'.

Things have sure quieted down after the New Year. The Y2K scare is just a thing of the past, now all we have to worry about is Y3K, well, I'm not going to worry about it. I did notice the program that I use, "Professional Write", a DOS version word processor, does have a minor problem with the year 2000. Every time I save my work in a file, the program date stamps the month, day, and year such as 12/31/99, well guess what?, the program doesn't recognize the year "00". Instead of stamping the date 1/9/00, it stamps it as 1/9/:0. It's only a minor problem, and I can live with that, but it does prove there are a few Y2K problems that you will find as time goes by.

Since the FCC has restructured the Amateur Radio Licensing, by dropping the code speed to 5 Words Per Minute on all classes of licenses and reducing the number of classes to three, I've been hearing rumbles about how some Amateurs are going to turn in there licenses, and some VE Groups are no longer going to do testing. You've got to remember, you can't fight city hall. Every one had the opportunity to write the FCC and tell them what you would like to see done about the restructuring, how many of you did that? I'm sure that when the FCC first started the Novice Class licenses in the early 1950's, Amateurs that had their first license were upset too, since they had to go in front of an FCC Official and draw schematics of transmitters, receivers, and oscillators and had to answer the questions that weren't multiple choice. Then they made the questions multiple choice and the licensed Amateurs were upset. Then came the books that had the questions of tests that other Amateurs could remember and wrote down after they took their tests. Now the exact questions and answers are printed in a book you can get at Radio Shack. There is one thing that I have noticed in the 37 years that I've been an Amateur, and that is how much harder the questions keep getting. I've looked over a question pool book for Extra Class license and couldn't believe what I was reading. The questions in there are so much harder and more information then when I took my Extra. Just because the FCC has lowered the Code speed doesn't mean that they are just giving away the license, it's still hard to learn enough electronics to get a license. When the FCC created No-Code Technician license, I though it would be the end of Amateur Radio, then I realized that I would be able to get more Packet Operators and took advantage of helping them get their license. You might as well get used to the fact that restructuring is here to stay, and take advantage of it.

There were 91 check-ins to this week's DAREN Net of the century. Bob, KB8QKY and Juddie, KC8CON need only one more check-in each to receive their deserved certificate for 150 check-ins. I want to welcome back an operator that been gone since February 22, 1997 and that is Mike, N8UXF. I also want to welcome a new comer to the DAREN system and that is Don, N8EVP.

Ken WA8LLM @ PKBGWV
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