Unless RACES is specifically invoked and you are participating in a RACES directed net FCC rules always govern the operation of your station. Even RACES works within the FCC rules.

ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) is just a volunteer organization and has no legal force; FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) may make use of RACES but has nothing to do with your operation at the request of public service officials.

Last edited by kd7bbc. Register to edit

Tags: rules and regulations fcc

RACES - Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (only active during periods of local, regional or national civil emergencies, such as hurricane Katrina.)

ARES - Amateur Radio Emergency Service (sponsored by ARRL)

ARRL - American Radio Relay League

Last edited by kd7bbc. Register to edit

Tags: emergency communication RACES

Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (usually called RACES, pronounced 'race - ease' as a single word) is a radio service organized and controlled by government agencies that can be activated to allow amateur radio operators (who should be members of RACES and have a RACES number) to participate in emergencies or civil defense.

It is not organized by amateur operators, is not used at civic or other non- emergency events, and would be much more likely to be used to assist the military than to ever be specifically non-military.

Last edited by bud 357. Register to edit

Tags: emergency communication RACES

During net operations there are commonly many stations participating and attempting to communicate. It is very important that the priority of your emergency be established immediately, so the first words of your transmission should convey that. "Priority" or "Emergency" should be stated immediately so that there is no confusion about your intent and need.

The term SOS does not actually make sense except in morse code and pressing the push to talk button multiple times is likely to simply be ignored as normal radio static or a malfunctioning radio. Similarly a pre-recorded emergency alert tone would probably be taken as an accidental transmission by someone. When in doubt, say it straight; in amateur radio we don't do secret codes.

Note: The closest thing to a "pre-recorded emergency alert tone" that is used is LiTZ which means Long Term Zero. This is not something that is used on an emergency net! It is an emergency repeater feature where if someone transmits a DTMF 0 tone for >3 seconds on a repeater's input frequency the repeater can provide instructions, phone/page the control operator of the repeater, or possibly phone emergency services. It is only used in an emergency when a radio operator can reach a repeater but nobody is currently listening. It is not used on an emergency net or when a human is responding to calls!

Last edited by rjstone. Register to edit

Tags: emergency communication operating procedures

When an emergency net (or any other net for that matter) is in progress there will be many amateur radio operators using the same frequency at the same time. In order to make this work a net control operator will coordinate all traffic on the frequency. Unless you have an emergency you should generally not transmit unless requested to do so. If you have traffic that the net control operator needs to know about you may call net control when the frequency is quiet, but do not ask for emergency traffic -- if there was any traffic they would have told you already.

As with most things, there may be exceptions to this rule; if you need to know something then call and ask about it, but in an emergency always be certain that you are sure that your need is greater than anything else that may be going on, and remember that the net control operator may have other things going on off-air that you are disrupting.

Do not ever transmit just to be heard or to "make sure they know you are there". When you check in you are notifying them that you are there and they will expect you to remain until released or until they hear otherwise. 5 kHz away from the frequency is still close enough that any transmissions you make will interfere with the net.

Last edited by atocha. Register to edit

Tags: operating procedures emergency communication

During an emergency or when handling emergency traffic an amateur radio operator is first and foremost an extension of a communcation system. Like any good communication system your responsibility is to efficiently and accurately convey the information to whomever needs to receive it.

Amateur Radio is never used to broadcast information to the general public either directly or indirectly.

Last edited by kd7bbc. Register to edit

Tags: emergency communication operating procedures

When a Ham radio operator is faced with an emergency that involves the immediate safety of a person, or personal property, a ham should use normal ham frequencies, procedures, and rules to ask for assistance. However, if normal communications systems are not functioning (e.g. you've tried 'playing by the rules' and it's not working), ham operators are authorized to use whatever means are at their disposal, even if this means transmitting on non- ham frequencies, using excessive power, etc.

Last edited by bud 357. Register to edit

Tags: emergency communication rules and regulations

The American Radio Relay League was originally created in order to relay messages across long distances. In order to do so safely and efficiently, the Amateur Radio Traffic Handling system was created. The first part of any message sent across this system is called the preamble.

The preamble contains information such as who the message is from, who the message is to, and information about the content of the message (specifically the number of words). This information is used to facilitate correctly routing the message through the Amateur Radio Traffic Handling System without losing any part of the message or sending it to the wrong destination.

Last edited by winterqt. Register to edit

Tags: formal traffic message emergency communication

The best practice is to use plain English and not jargon. But in the case of formal message traffic, the word, "check" means the count of words in the body (text portion) of the message.

This is a way to make sure you didn't add or drop a word from the message. This is related to the best practice of passing the message exactly as it was received.

Let’s use this as an example message we want to send:

Great seeing you yesterday. Hope to get together again soon. 73

In a radiogram, periods are written as either the letter X (“initial x-ray”), or the word XRAY. Either way, this indicates an end of a sentence. Similarly, if your message was, “How are you?” the question mark would be written as QUERY to indicate a question.

Using this method, we will write the text of the message like this:

GREAT SEEING YOU YESTERDAY X

HOPE TO GET TOGETHER AGAIN

SOON 73

Notice how we did not place X between SOON and 73? When wishing someone 73 at the end of a message, we generally do not include an X as it’s automatically implied. The only exception would be to include it for clarity. For example, if the end of your message was “ON AUGUST 10 73” it could be confusing this way, so we would instead say “ON AUGUST 10 X 73” to help better separate the date from wishing someone 73.

Items like X and QUERY count as a word when filling in the check, so counting what we have above, there are 12 words, and we would write 12 in the check.

Last edited by kd7bbc. Register to edit

Tags: formal traffic message emergency communication