On the net
- View
Directed nets, how to check in, how to break in when it matters, and why every relay makes a report slightly worse.
In this lesson you will
- Distinguish a directed net from an open one and describe the net control role.
- Execute a check-in and pass priority traffic.
- Deliver a report over the air with standard structure, phonetics and plain language.
- Explain how a report degrades through relay and how to prevent it.
Directed means somebody is in charge
An open net is a conversation: transmit when the frequency is clear. A directed net has a net control station who decides who transmits and when, and during severe weather the net will be directed. You do not transmit unless net control calls you or you break in for something urgent.
Net control is doing four things at once: managing who is on the air, prioritizing what gets passed, keeping a log, and relaying to the forecast office. They are the busiest person on the frequency, which is the reason for every piece of discipline below.
The nets are organized and run by volunteer amateur groups. The NWS does not run the net, does not staff it, and does not control it, although many offices host a volunteer-operated amateur station so the net has somebody to hand reports to. One office puts it plainly: the service is provided entirely by volunteers.
Checking in
- Listen first. For at least a few seconds, and longer if you have just turned the radio on. You cannot hear a transmission in progress if you are transmitting over it.
- Wait to be called, or wait for net control to ask for check-ins.
- Give your call sign, your name, and your location. Location is the part that matters: net control is building a map of who is where.
- Say whether you have traffic. If you have nothing to report, say so and stop talking.
- Then stop talking. The commonest fault on any net is a check-in that turns into a conversation.
Breaking in when it matters
You will at some point need to interrupt. Somebody is passing a routine hail report and you are watching a tornado. The procedure is short and it exists precisely so you do not have to invent one.
Wait for a gap between transmissions, then:
"BREAK, EMERGENCY TRAFFIC, [your call sign]"
Then stop, and wait for net control to acknowledge you.
Then pass the report, slowly, in the standard order.The word is the point. It is recognizable, it is unambiguous, and it will stop a net instantly. Which is exactly why it is never used for anything less.
Everybody on that frequency has agreed in advance that those words outrank whatever they were saying. That agreement is worth nothing if the word gets used for a large hailstone. Discipline about the priority words is what makes them function on the night somebody genuinely needs them.
The report, over the air
The same seven elements module 7 lesson 6 specified, in a fixed order so net control can write them down without asking you to repeat anything.
Weak:
"Yeah I've got some real big hail here at the house, it's
coming down hard, biggest I've seen in years."
Usable:
"[Call sign], trained spotter. Hail, one and three quarter
inches, measured. Three miles east of Robertsdale. Time of
occurrence one nine four two local. Still falling."Same event, same thirty seconds of speaking. Net control can write the second one straight onto a log sheet and relay it without a single follow-up question.
- Your call sign and that you are a trained spotter. This becomes the source field from lesson 2.
- What, with a number and a measured-or-estimated tag.
- Where the event was, not where you are. Module 7 lesson 6 has the figure showing why.
- When it happened, not when you are transmitting.
- Anything still developing, briefly.
Phonetics, plain language and time
- Use the standard phonetic alphabet
- Alfa, Bravo, Charlie and the rest. Not invented words, however clear they sound to you. Spell place names, unusual words and anything containing a letter that sounds like another letter. B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V and Z are indistinguishable over a noisy signal.
- Use plain language, not codes
- This is doctrine, not preference. The national incident management standard requires common terminology rather than agency-specific ten-codes, precisely because the codes differ between agencies and the point of a multi-agency incident is that strangers have to understand each other.
- Be explicit about time
- Say "local" or say "zulu", every time. Never a bare number. Some nets work in UTC to avoid time zone confusion, especially near a zone boundary or when relaying across one.
FEMA: "There simply is little or no room for misunderstanding in an emergency situation." Ten-codes sound professional and they are a dialect. On a net with amateur operators, a fire department and a county emergency manager, a dialect is a hazard.
Relay degradation
Every time a report passes through a person it can lose precision, and the losses are predictable. A report that started as "one and three quarter inch hail, measured, three miles east of Robertsdale, at 1942" becomes, two relays later, "golf ball hail near Robertsdale a little while ago".
| What gets lost first | The fix |
|---|---|
| The measured or estimated tag | Say it every time, including when relaying somebody else |
| Time of occurrence | Relay the original time, never "a few minutes ago" |
| Precision of the number | Relay the number, not a reference object you substituted for it |
| Who actually observed it | Name the original source. You are the relay, not the observer |
| Location precision | Distance and direction from a named place, as given |
The last row is lesson 2 again. A relayed report that records the relayer as the source has quietly upgraded its own credibility, which is the worst failure on this list.
Read back anything numeric, and expect to be read back to. And relay in the fixed order rather than paraphrasing, because a fixed order makes an omission audible. If you find yourself relaying something vague, the right move is to ask the three questions that restore it: how big exactly, measured or estimated, and what time.
Check yourself
Net control is taking a routine hail report. You are watching a tornado on the ground two miles away. What do you transmit?
- "Break, emergency traffic," your call sign, then stop and wait to be acknowledged
- Wait for the net to finish, then check in normally and report when called
- Transmit the full tornado report immediately over the top of the current transmission
- Call the office by phone instead and leave the net alone
Hint
One option is too slow, one is unusable, and one abandons the channel you are already on.
Answer
"Break, emergency traffic," your call sign, then stop and wait to be acknowledged
The break procedure exists for exactly this and it is why net discipline matters the rest of the time. Waiting your turn is too slow for a tornado on the ground; transmitting over somebody makes both transmissions unintelligible; and phoning is a reasonable second action but not the first when you are already on a net with a direct relay to the office.
Sources
- FEMA, National Incident Management System, and the plain language guidance
- NWS Instruction 10-517, multi-purpose weather products specification
- NWS SKYWARN storm spotter program
- ITU and NATO phonetic alphabet, international standard