[CoARES-D10] nets

[SCOMIND@aol.com]

Hi Chris,

> In my short long-ago MARS career I didn't handle much traffic.


A lot of the traffic seemed like canned messages, such as "so-and-so arrived=
=20
at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot", an acknowledgement of safe arrival se=
nt=20
back home. A lot was also "I'm OK, don't worry", but some messages reflected=
=20
serious family matters. There were also bulletins and training messages.

[I ran a lot of RTTY back then, which was more challenging than today's=20
AMTOR, PSK31, etc. - - no computers. My shack wasn't very big, but I had a T=
eletype=20
Model 15, a Model 28, and full Model 14 tape perf and reperf capabilities.=20
Junk by today's standards.]

Anyway, I'm sure most servicemen talk home via Internet or cell phones today=
.=20
And long distance calls are much cheaper now.

> Most of the nets were check-in, around for comments, then OUT.


Yup, very businesslike. I recall most nets being half an hour. When time was=
=20
up, the net had to close because the freq would be taken over by a net in=20
another state.

The longest sessions occurred when the band was poor and the messages had to=
=20
be relayed. Unlike the game of "Telephone", MARS procedures kept the message=
=20
from changing as it was relayed around the country.


> How do they officially handle long-running events that have messages
> coming and going at all times?=A0 Does the NCS do some kind of
> regular polling of the net?=A0 Or do the stations do a sort
> of break-in when they get traffic?


The nets were were intended for formal traffic and started exactly on time.=20
Stations were allowed "second go" comments when there wasn't much traffic, a=
nd=20
if there was still time after that, the participants were excused but a=20
"watch" followed in case additional traffic showed up.

On the other hand, if traffic was heavy and wasn't finished by the end of th=
e=20
net, you could join the next net on that frequency or you could wait for the=
=20
next scheduled net for your state.

They had to schedule nets round-robin that way because there were only a few=
=20
frequencies that had to be shared by all the nets.

>=20
> That seems to be the model we should be building on.=A0 Because
> things like MS-150 and fire deployments and such are long-running
> events, not just "kc0atc chris estes park no traffic"
>=20

I agree. My comments were toward the Wednesday night ARES net, which seems t=
o=20
be pretty close to a scheduled, limited-time, formal traffic model.=20
Longer-term emergencies require another model. We do have both "formal nets"=
 and=20
"informal nets" when it comes to things like weather watches. Guess that's b=
asically=20
what we do when it comes to wildfires.

You know, it was really kewl having a dedicated radio on the MARS 2-meter=20
linked repeater network. It was totally quiet unless someone had something=20
relatively important to say. You could just pick up the mic and talk with a=20=
member=20
virtually anywhere in the state. No ragchews - - you could leave the rig on=20=
all=20
the time.

73,
Bob


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