The Central Ohio Traffic Net handles traffic 365 days per year. Each day we hold a regular session and we hold special sessions throughout the year for training sessions and for emergencies as events warrant. As a training net, we pay special attention to our procedure and help new traffic handlers. When we hear mistakes (as they invariably will) and have questions, our more senior handlers offer their words of wisdom. Here we memorialize some of them. |
Training Tips
Use of X in radiograms
Radiograms often need to include more than a single sentence worth of information. How do we separate one sentence from another, where we'd normally put a period at the end of the sentences? A break in thought—a "STOP" in the parlance of old timey telegrams—is written with a single initial X. For example,
could be interpreted as
or
To ensure that the break goes in the right place, we'll use initial X to indicate a break in thought.
Note that there isn't a trailing X in the radiogram. The end of the radiogram or an obvious change in thought (e.g., "73") does not require the X. Remember that radiograms as formatted for transmission, not for delivery. Air time is very "expensive," and we work to make transmission as efficient as possible to avoid taking time to transmit. Radio operators are ostensibly trained and know how to make sense of how the radiograms are formatted, just as software is able to make sense of data encoded according to a given specification. When we get to the stage of delivery, we turn the text into standard language. The delivering station knows that the end of the message includes a period, and will add one when delivering; there's no need for one during transmission. |
A Radiogram Occasion
A colleague and I were planning a little hiking trip. The idea was to get out away from the city and infrastructure, spend a little time getting heads clear. I'd set up an HF radio station and get some air time while he got a look around for things that might make for good exploration on a future visit to the area.
His wife was close to delivering a child but with parents in town and prepared for the event he thought a little day trip only an hour or so away might be just what he needed. By the time the day arrived, so had the baby. No day trip was to be had but it did seem a good occasion for a congratulatory note. Naturally I thought the way to take care of that was with a radiogram.
As it turned out, the radiogram also made for a good example of how to deliver a radiogram, and how that's different from relay—especially when it comes to the use of numbered radiograms. The message was promptly relayed once on the net and delivered just a few minutes later. The next day I got a message back from my colleague, who wrote in part, "That radiogram has been the best congratulatory message I have ever received."
Messages can be both novelties that bring the recipient a little more joy and good training for the operators originating, relaying, and delivering them.
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Use of "Time Filed" in the Preamble
On this evening's net, Gene N8YRF raised an important issue on the use of the (optional) Time Filed element of the Preamble of the Radiogram. He commented that it is not generally used for Routine traffic but is used during Emergency and Priority precedence traffic. Emergency and Priority traffic are to be handled with particular urgency, so the time of day in that case is generally quite sensible to include. As with most amateur radio nets, COTN's call-up begins with identification of the net and a call for stations with Emergency or Priority traffic. In the event that we have someone list such traffic, we'll handle it immediately—even before the rest of the net call-up. (Note MPG 4.6.3, "Listing Formal Radiograms" says that Emergency traffic is to be declared and handled immediately by any means necessary.) In the event that either Emergency or Priority traffic is brought to the net, Net Control will call for another station on frequency that can handle the traffic and wherever possible move the stations to another frequency to handle the traffic while the rest of the net call-up takes place. Once traffic has been handled, stations will return to the net frequency and advise net control that they're back and therefore ready for additional business. In addition to the case of Emergency and Priority traffic, there is the matter of handling instructions B (HXB). HXB is followed by a number to indicate the number of hours that the message is to stay alive. For example, HXB 36 means that the message is to continue moving toward delivery but if delivery has not happened 36 hours after Time Filed, the message is to be canceled and serviced back to the station of origin. Finally, it's important also to remember that when using Time Filed, you need to ensure that the time is correct. Standard amateur practice is to use universal time (UTC, also known as Zulu time) to ensure that the time is unambiguous through timezones. Hence, something filed at 1200 APR 17 would be 8:00 A.M. eastern daylight time, which is four hours behind UTC. If local time is to be used, amateur practice is to use L at the end of time filed, e.g., 0800L. A timezone designator is also allowable, e.g., 0800EDT. UTC is preferable. For additional information, please see Chapter 1 of the MPG, specifically 1.1.7, "Time Filed, [TIME], Optional." |
How Do We Route Traffic?
Most VHF traffic nets are thought of as "local": the "first mile" or "last mile" of the system: involved in traffic relay only as needed to receive traffic to deliver, or to relay traffic originated. With a footprint of approximately 10 counties, VHF contact to EMA stations at the county and state level, as well as stations able to relay traffic to other radio services including MARS and SHARES, COTN has a good deal more relaying than many other "local" nets.
COTN net control stations and stations that can perform relay services therefore need to pay attention to traffic listed, and the capabilities of stations on frequency.
A good example of how this can work took place in the past week. We had routine precedence traffic listed for Hardin County, about 50 miles from our primary repeater's transmit site, about 30 miles from the nearest receive site for the repeater system. Normally traffic going that far would be outbound, headed to HF.
A station in Marion County, about 40 miles from our transmit site and 20 miles from the nearest receive site, volunteered to take the Hardin County traffic. He advised us that there as a weekly net in Marion County that evening that often had a Hardin County station check in. Though it is not an NTS or RRI affiliate, the net would handle the traffic under the care of the Marion County operator.
Thus, rather than waiting for the next cycle for HF and finding a station in or near Hardin County to take the traffic, the message got through and was delivered correctly by relaying through two nets in about 45 minutes. The attached image shows the relative positions of the sites in question.
We note that especially as we consider times where sunspot activity or other atmospheric conditions impede HF operations, the ability to employ relay to ensure timely delivery is an important part of providing a resilient and reliable message relay service. |
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Where can I direct practice radiograms?
Learning how to originate radiograms can be exciting. Refining and maintaining the capability requires regular practice. Are you regularly sending radiograms? Where can you send them to keep the skill up?
There are several places you can go for good places to send radiograms. RadiogramCQ.com maintains several lists for people who are interested in receiving traffic. See the RadiogramCQ CQ Lists. Reach out to your local Section Traffic Manager, or Section Manager, to find out where there are people happy to take practice traffic. The ARRL has a list of sections and how to reach the leadership. Finally, there's COTN's own humble contribution to this effort; being a training net, we have plenty of our own operators with a need to direct traffic somewhere, and if we can help others in doing so, so much the better! If you'd like to join our list of practice traffic recipients, send a radiogram to our net manager with your name, city/state/zip, and phone number.
Central Ohio Traffic Net Practice Traffic Destinations. Send a radiogram to any of these at any time!
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Third-Party Traffic Handling Is a Public Service
Amateur radio is a great hobby, where one can tinker and experiment to learn the art of radio, to advance the state of the art, and even to enhance international goodwill. All of these benefits are memorialized in the opening of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 97, the rules that define the amateur radio service in the United States. The very first benefit of all, however, is something more serious:
Here is traffic handling: a voluntary noncommercial communication service for the public. Since the earliest days of amateur radio, our technology and operating skill have been ready to serve. When one of the worst windstorms ever experienced by Ann Arbor, Michigan blew through on the night of March 21, 1913, toppling houses and telegraph lines. The situation worsened when by a week later, the city of Freemont, Ohio was under water and flooding was prevalent throughout central Ohio. During this time, amateur radio operators worked day and night to keep the communications flowing though other systems had failed. Lessons learned from this early event were clear. Amateurs should "Put [their] aerial up so it will stay up, no matter what happens, and learn to handle messages at commercial speeds, for [they] may be called on to handle emergency messages when [they] least expect it." Radio, "in the hands of the amateur, while it is used by some as a plaything, is capable of doing excellent service in time of need; and we hope the work done by these men who did all they could to maintain communication between the flood stricken cities and the rest of the world, will long be remembered." (Modern Electronics. "The Wireless Amateur in Times of Disaster." April 1913) In those days, the response was ad hoc. Today, however, we are far better organized to handle events large and small. This is due in no large part to the voluntary public service rendered by radio amateurs. The Central Ohio Traffic Net, and the larger network of amateur operators around the world, may well be hobbyists, but train and operate so that they may serve their communities in a professional, if unpaid, manner. While we typically enjoy the work, traffic handling is not a hobby: it is a public service. Once we make an appearance and volunteer in a traffic net, as part of Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), or put our radio to work for a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), we are not hobbyists: we've committed to help to achieve a mission on behalf of the public. COTN is a training net, and we encourage all regardless of experience to join us and to learn how to put the art of radio to good use. We're happy to help you along the way so that you can see whether this is the kind of public service you'd like to render, and if so, how you can be the greatest asset you can be in a time of need. We encourage all to follow a few guidelines:
We're here to get the job done, and to help others learn to do the job well. Never hesitate to ask if you have a question. Once we're finished with the ongoing operation we're happy to take the time to discuss what you've seen and heard, and to find out how we can improve. Thank you for all that you do to advance amateur radio and to provide service to your community. |
FEMA Emergency Management Institute Online Training
COTN has started to keep track of FEMA/EMI coursework that our operators have completed. We'll need this for representing to served agencies such as Franklin County Emergency Management & Homeland Security. All FEMA independent studies can be accessed at https://training.fema.gov/is/crslist.aspx?page=all Please note that a FEMA STUDENT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER will be required for any credit or documentation. (You can get one online if you do not have one.) Once you have completed any FEMA course and have your EMI certificate, please send a copy of your certificate to the ARRL Ohio Section and Franklin County Emergency Management & Homeland Security, who keep the certificates to show evidence of completion. Please also advise our Personnel Officer by radiogram, who can update the roster. These qualifications will be needed for emergency deployments.
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How Do We Count Interrupted Net Sessions?
Most of the time, reporting for a net is pretty straightforward. Net managers track how many "sessions" the net holds during the course of a month. COTN typically has one session per day, but may have special sessions as well during recruiting events, training, or the annual Simulated Emergency Test (SET). Some other nets meet more or less frequently: the Ohio Single Sideband Net, for example, has three scheduled sessions daily. Every time that a net control station calls a net session and directs the frequency, the net has a session to be recorded and reported. Each station that checks into the net will count that checkin for station activity reports (SAR) and the public service honor roll (PSHR). Sometimes, though, a session can be interrupted. Sometimes sessions get interrupted because the net control station disappears, as happens if working from emergency power and having batteries give out. In other cases, a repeater might stop working. In still other cases, interference require that the net move to an alternate frequency. No matter what the cause, if a net session is interrupted and needs to be continued, the session ends with the interruption and an entirely new session is called on the alternate frequency. Net control will begin a completely new session, reading the script, and going through the process of checkins. Any traffic passed in the session that was interrupted still counts as having been passed in the previous session, so it is not to be listed again. Any traffic that was listed or has since come in to be passed will need to be listed for the new session. Net control will direct the traffic as usual. In such a case, the net control station of each session will create a session report: one for the session that was interrupted, and the next for the session that was called to take care of unfinished business from the interrupted session. In such a case, of course, the net session report for anything other than the 1915 ET net will have an extra word in it, indicating the time that the net was started. For example, if the usual session on August 30 started at 1915, had eight stations checkin, passed one piece of traffic to the Section Net Liaison KD8TTE, and ran until 1921 before needing to restart, the session report would read: 30 8 1 6 KD8TTE A second session starting at 1925 to continue the net operation would also need to be filed, with its word two indicating the time that the net began. Suppose nine stations check in, KD8TTE as SNL, two pieces of traffic move, and the net completes at 1941. That session report would read: 30 1925 9 2 16 KD8TTE Of course if on the same net WA3EZN also acted as SNL, the session report would read: 30 1925 9 2 16 KD8TTE WA3EZN If your station checks into both nets, you will count two net checkins for SAR and PSHR purposes. If you check into only one then you will count only one. Despite the fact that the second session exists to complete unfinished business, it is a completely independent net session, just as if it were held on another day entirely. |
Having Trouble Delivering Traffic to Rural Areas by Phone?
Sometimes traffic handlers will have difficulty delivering traffic by telephone. FCC reports that these are happening frequently in some places as a result of some phone service providers using third-party call-routing services designed to reduce fees associated with completing calls. Sometimes those services fail to complete the call at all, which can be evident from conditions like:
To deliver traffic, you might want to try making the call from another provider, e.g., a landline if you're using a mobile phone to complete the call, before servicing the message back to the station of origin. Of course you might also consider delivering the traffic by hand or by mail. For more information on the problem and what to do about it, see FCC's page on rural calling completion problems. |
How Do I Deliver a Message?
After learning how to originate and to relay traffic, you've started to accept traffic. Great! It's one thing to accept traffic for yourself, but something entirely different to deliver a message to someone who might not even know what amateur radio is. This isn't just something to make you worry. Sadly we do have operators among us who don't get enough practice delivering messages to the public and sometimes forget that they're dealing with people who don't even know how to spell NTS, much less how to make sense out of "NUMBER EIGHT FOUR SEVEN ROUTINE HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS FOXTROT ONE ZERO..." I just got a service message back on a birthday greeting I sent to someone. The service message said "wrong number," but it turns out that the number was right. The recipient had no idea what was happening and didn't wait around for two minutes of baffling words to get to the signature to learn who sent the message. NTS just isn't as useful as it should be if we do stuff like this. How do we avoid this trouble? As usual, Methods and Practices Guidelines is a good place to look. Chapter 8 deals with interacting with members of the public, including the delivery of traffic. In a nutshell, the recipient does not want a "radiogram" and the way that we relay the message along NTS is not how we will deliver the message to the public. They don't care about message numbers, handling instructions, stations of origin, or anything like that. We—traffic handlers—need that kind of information to ensure smooth and effective operation. When it comes to the originators and recipients of messages, what they care about is who sent the message and what it says. My advice is get to the point, and get there quickly. If I have a message for Alice in Hilliard from Bob in Chicago, when I talk to Alice I'm going to say, "Hello. I am an amateur radio operator and have a radio message for you from Bob in Chicago. I'd like to read it to you and can send back a response if you'd like." I then read the message directly in plain English, no mumbo-jumbo ALFA ROMEO LIMA SEVEN X-RAY. After I read the message, I ask if they need me to repeat anything. Once that's taken care of, I ask if I may send a message back for them. Once that's addressed, I'll ask if they've got any questions about this service provided by amateur radio operators to ensure that we have communication even when phones, cell towers, and Internet service are taken out by disaster. If they say they want to hear more, I give them only a few sentences: amateur radio also known as ham radio operators use their radios and antenna systems to talk to people all over the world. It's a great hobby, a way to learn how electronics work, and because we can talk all over the world gives us the chance to provide international goodwill. We also serve our communities by providing communications services when things like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina strike. Those disasters make it impossible for entire parts of the country to communicate but because our radios don't need wires or have limited circuits for calls we can send and receive messages for people who are affected. To keep ourselves in practice, we relay routine messages like the one you just got so we're not rusty when it's time to perform the service under stress. If you or someone you know would like to learn how to do this, I'm happy to give you my number and point you to the local clubs to help you get started. Here's the critical part of MPG, quoted verbatim.
Happy traffic handling! Matthew KD8TTE, ORS |
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