[FLARES] ARRL BOD Report on ARES

[Keith Kotch]

Surely the NTS was/has been used to send Health and Welfare traffic
during disasters over the past couple of years.

(My personal HOT BUTTON is the Red Cross moratorium on starting H&W
traffic)

Now, is the NTS formal message traffic format used in the "day-to-day"
business comms sent during an emergency?  Probably not very much.  Using
the format for formal, written messages is one thing, using the NTS
itself to send messages (other than H&W) during an active emergency is
quite another.  NTS nets would need to be on a 24/7 activation
monitoring the frequency during ARES activations to be of any use for
other than H&W traffic.  I'd be hard pressed to use NTS during a
"typical" ARES type activation.  Now, if I were passing important
messages using voice comms that needed to be documented and verified,
then I'd use the NTS formal written message format but I still probably
wouldn't try to be using the NTS to pass them UNLESS they were "Johnny
on the spot" and could get that long-haul message delivered within
seconds or minutes.

Keith, KF4BXT
Seminole Co. ARES EC




-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Womble
Subject: RE: [FLARES] ARRL BOD Report on ARES

When was the last time the NTS was actually used to send cross country
or even regional messages during a disaster?

Paul K4FB