RCARES Tactical Net Exercise

From Megawiki

A directed net is used if Three or more stations will share the frequency. This enables Net Control to quickly pick among the several stations that have traffic to handle. A directed net is absolutely essential if stations on the net are also doing other tasks, so they may not be paying close attention to net activity.

For example, if an operator was talking to the public, or was helping carry supplies, he may have lost track of net activity by the time he gets some traffic to originate. You can suspect this is the case if operators frequently transmit on top of one another! This also reflects lack of training. Good radio discipline is important in disaster work to aid efficient communications when time wasted may cost lives!

Use tactical and FCC call signs efficiently. You will be called by your tactical call sign, not your FCC amateur radio call sign. You should use the tactical call sign to identify your transmissions and you should call another station by its tactical call sign. Of course you must identify properly every ten minutes and at the end of each transmission with your FCC call sign; see example below.

Listen for your tactical call sign. That way, the net can be conducted without regard to what operator is at the radio of any particular place. Of course, Part 97 requires each amateur radio station to give its FCC identifier at the end of each communication and every ten minutes during transmission. To comply, simply add your FCC call sign to your last

transmission in a series. For example:

NC "Wilson's Shadow, this is Net Control."
WS "Wilson's Shadow."
NC "Tell Chief Wilson that his driver has returned."
WS "K6XYZ Roger, out."
NC "W6ZZZ" out.

Answer promptly when called. Unless you make other agreements, you are expected to listen continuously to the net and answer immediately when called. If you know you will be unable to participate for an interval, tell that to Net Control before you leave, and check in with Net Control when you return. Otherwise, the net can waste a lot of time attempting to call you when you are not there.

Never leave a net without checking out. Always check out of your net before leaving. If another operator has your assignment after you, don't check out before briefing him (see below). As a practical matter, we are volunteers and Net Control cannot compel someone to stay that wants to leave. But we owe it to the people and agencies we serve and to our reputations as individuals and as ARES organizations, to be reliable. Once we agree to support an agency's activity, we should do our best to deserve that agency's trust.

Assign tactical call signs. Have some people try, this is for practice. Use event tactical that stations are actually participating and any check in to tactical not utilized.

see RCARES Example Tactical exchangefor more details.