Glendora Emergency Response Communications

Workshop Notes, January 18, 2005

Basic Message Handling

Message Handling

Voice communications take two basic forms in nearly all operations in which ARES plays a part : "Tactical" - Direct (person-to-person), or "Formal" - Sent through a third party to reach its intended addressee.

Formal communications must be used when information is passed through any third party to reach its destination. Sometimes it is desirable to use radiogram form just to preserve a record of what information was sent and received even when no third party relays it.

Tactical ("informal") communications are useful and necessary. They allow an EC to speak directly over the air with ARES members or with the DEC.

Formal radiograms, however, are basic to virtually all ARES assistance to third parties. That's because, when people's lives and property are at stake, any risk of misunderstanding, or of transmitting erroneous information is close to intolerable.


Message Precedence

ARRL prescribes four message precedences: Routine, Welfare, Priority and EMERGENCY (equivalent to SOS or MAYDAY). In every ARRL radiogram, a "precedence" indicator follows the message number in the preamble. Net Controls must observe message precedence when dispatching traffic.


Routine

Nearly all of the day-to-day messages handled on the National Traffic System (NTS) carries a Routine ("R") precedence. Routine traffic is generally handled on any Alaska Net. It is not unusual, however, for inexperienced operators to assign a "Routine" to messages that should, in fact carry a "Priority" label. The NCS should ask if the traffic is related in any way to the emergency situation. If the answer is "yes," the operator holding the traffic should be instructed to reclassify it as "Priority" and offer it again.

Welfare messages (incoming or outgoing) carry a "W" precedence, a notch above Routine and a notch below Priority. They may be handled at the discretion of the Net Manager unless Priority traffic is pending, or the net is on Red Alert.


Welfare

Unfortunately, when an emergency net accepts even a few "W" messages, it sends a signal to scores of operators, who have been listening silently, that here is a chance to cram some inquiry traffic into the disaster area, triggering a landslide of welfare message listings. Welfare traffic is not included in the mission statement of the Alaska Emergency Net. Independent nets often spring up specifically to handle welfare inquiries, and NCS should make a brief announcement about every hour that such nets are operating at such-and-such a frequency.

Additionally, the Alaska Digital traffic system incorporates welfare traffic in its mission statement; it can handle bulk traffic with ease. Welfare traffic listed on NTS nets quickly reaches the Alaska digital system and can sometimes be delivered just as quickly.

People who try to push welfare inquiries close on the heels of a disaster may not realize that even a message that reaches its destination city may not be deliverable. Typically in the wake of a disaster, normal communications within the impact zone are disrupted. Those local telephones are still working - including cellular - are invariably saturated with urgent emergency-related traffic. In addition, streets may be blocked, street signs and landmark buildings destroyed, making it extremely hard to deliver messages, even if personnel are available to try it.

Welfare messages are not handled while Priority traffic is pending. Emergency nets handle no Routine traffic at all.


Priority

In emergency operations, most of the traffic handled on ARES nets will carry a Priority ("P") precedence, meaning that they are relevant to the existing emergency and therefore should be moved toward their destinations as rapidly as possible. Since virtually all messages listed are designated "Priority", Net Control dispatches them in any convenient order. But "P" traffic volume on some emergency nets can become quite heavy, meaning that some messages must wait in line behind others of (presumably) equal importance. For such situations, Alaska has adopted a fudged version of the Priority category "SECC Priority" which presumes that some messages are slightly "more equal" than others. Messages originating at the Alaska Division of Emergency Services or addressed to DES, are handled ahead of other Priority messages. ARES GATEways holding such traffic should list it that way with NCS, but message transmissions in progress will not be interrupted for SECC Priority traffic either coming or going.

All emergency-related messages to or from the SECC carry a Priority precedence. They should be listed with Net Control as "SECC Priority." Such messages are handled ahead of other Priority messages on the net.

NOTE: The practice of using "BREAK" or "BREAK BREAK" to announce distress traffic should be strongly discouraged; it has no universally understood meaning. Always use the international standard "MAYDAY" to announce traffic of life-or-death importance. The standard CW signal is "SOS," sent as a single character not spaced as three letters.