COTN Coverage Area

Central Ohio Traffic Net (COTN) is part of a system of coordinated nets, themselves made up of stations. Liaisons from COTN to other nets should take traffic for any destination within ARES District 7, which includes the ten-county area of Franklin, Fairfield, Pickaway, Fayette, Madison, Union, Marion, Delaware, Knox, and Licking. (See COTN SOP, "Introduction.")

Imagine a case where a COTN station in Washington Court House (Fayette County) is on Ohio Single Sideband Net (OSSBN), where traffic is listed for a destination in Greer (Knox County). The COTN rep to OSSBN could be 100 miles away from the destination. In that case, the station in Washinton Court House should take that traffic if there isn't a Knox County station on the net to take it. It's not "out of my area," because while the individual station might be far from the destination, that individual station is representing all of COTN. COTN's coverage area is all of ARES District 7, which includes Knox County.

The system of message relay by amateur radio works not by coordinating stations but by coordinating nets. When performing liaison duty, remember that you represent all of one net to another net and should act on behalf of the net, not just your individual station. This works for both traffic going out of our coverage area (traffic to Section Net Liaison) but also traffic coming into our coverage area (traffic from the Section Net to COTN's liaison).

Once the Greer traffic is "on" the station at Fayette County, that station should join the next session of COTN and list that traffic. A station closer to Greer will then take it via COTN to get it to its destination.

Handling Third-Party Messages

An Example of Routing