Beginning this evening at 1800 hrs, AZ time, a National Traffic System (NTS) net will take place on the Radio Society of Tucson's new 2m repeater: -145.250 MHz, 156.7 PL Tone. This net will take place daily (7 days a week) in addition to the daily Arizona Traffic & Emergency Net (ATEN) net on 3986kHz at 1900 hrs Arizona Time. Tomy, KF7GC, AZ Section Traffic Manager, has wanted a 2m net for awhile. Thanks to RST and some willing folks, we will now have one! Newbies and experienced traffic handlers are welcome.
The NTS system of message handling has been around since 1915, and is a basic activity that the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) was formed around. Messages are still sent today during emergency situations (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) as well as for fun (birthday and holiday greetings, etc.) Radiogram message text is 25 words or less, 5 words per line, and composed in all-caps. The only punctuation used is XRAY for a period (.) and QUERY for a question mark (?). The signature name is not counted as part of the body text, but the salutation is (i.e, 73, LOVE, etc.). Messages are transferred to their destination by ham radio operators on ham radio nets, the majority of which are on HF. At final destination for a message, the receiving ham usually delivers it by telephone or by radio if it is going to a ham. Besides voice (phone) mode, we use CW, and digital modes (pactor, etc.). Messages may be sent to hams and non-hams within Arizona, out-of-state, and to any country with which the US has a third-party traffic agreement (http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/io/3rdparty.html). For non-local messages, you must provide the NAME, FULL ADDRESS and ZIP CODE as well as the PHONE NUMBER to ensure delivery. Here is a sample message (fictitious name, address, and phone):
101 R - K7ILA 25 TUCSON AZ - JUN29
SHEZA HAM KG6ILA
1234 GROUND WAVE WAY APT 73
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA 94043
650-555-1212
HOW WAS YOUR FIELD DAY
QUERY WE HAD A GREAT
TIME ON MOUNT LEMMON AT
9000 FEET XRAY HOPE TO
HEAR YOU ON 40M 73
PINK FOSTER K7ILA
Basically, the first line is called the Preamble and includes: message number (your choice), precedence (R for routine in this case), no handling code, station of origin (K7ILA), word count (25), origin, time, and date. Next is the address block. The body is organized in groups of five words (or numbers), followed by the signature. This is the basic format. To learn more, please check these resources and/or contact me for a copy of my NTS presentation:
Resources:
ARRL NTS Intro: http://www.emergency-radio.org/what_nts.pdf
ARRL Public Service Comms Manual (NTS Section): http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/pscm/sec2-ch1.html
Arizona NTS: http://atenaz.net/
If you are familiar with NTS and would like to assist with net control on this daily net, please let me know. I will get it rolling but hope to have a different net control for each day once we get established. A big thanks to all who have encouraged this, especially Randy Malick, KF0X, Tomy Ivan, KF7GC, and Bill Adams, KC7ZZ. This message will also be sent to the ArizonaHam and BART_Users yahoo groups. Please forward it to any interested hams.
73,
Pink Foster, K7ILA
Email: k7ila@arrl.net
Cell: 520-576-3650