Nets
A net is a scheduled, organized on-air meeting of amateur stations, run by a net control operator who calls the roll, takes check-ins and keeps things orderly. Nets run on local repeaters every evening in most areas, on HF every day, and on every mode from FM voice to CW to digital. They are where a new ham can be sure of finding someone to talk to, and where the hobby's public-service side gets practiced.
Kinds of net
- Club and social nets are the most common. A weekly net on the club repeater takes check-ins, shares announcements and gives everyone a chance to say a few words. Newcomers are expected and welcomed.
- Traffic nets pass formal written messages, called radiograms, from station to station across the country through the National Traffic System, a practice dating from the ARRL's founding as a relay league in 1914.
- Emergency and public-service nets are run by ARES and RACES groups. In normal times they are weekly drills; during a flood, fire or storm they become the real thing.
- Weather nets activate when severe weather threatens, with trained spotters reporting to the National Weather Service through SKYWARN.
- HF nets gather on fixed frequencies for everything from maritime mobile stations to swap-and-sell, county hunting, slow-speed CW practice and regional ragchews. Many have run daily for decades.
How a net runs
Net control opens with a preamble that names the net, its purpose and how to check in, then calls for stations in some order: emergency or priority traffic first, then mobiles, then everyone else, often by call sign suffix or alphabetically. A typical check-in is brief: your call sign, your name and location, and whether you have traffic or comments. Net control acknowledges each station and may come back to those with something to say.
Stations wait to be recognized before transmitting at length, keep transmissions short, and say "back to net" or hand back to net control when done. A directed net like this is formal; an open net lets stations talk among themselves with net control only loosely in charge.
Some nets log their check-ins online as they run, using the NetLogger program. The free On-Air Net Scraper app for iPhone, iPad and Mac, by Christopher Robson, K3CLR, lists NetLogger nets and their check-ins and adds call sign lookups.
Checking in for the first time
- Find a net. Club websites and the ARRL net directory list times and frequencies, and listening to the local repeater at 7 or 8 in the evening will usually turn one up.
- Listen to a whole net first so you know its routine.
- When net control asks for check-ins, give your call sign slowly, then wait. Net control will come back to you for your name and location.
- If you have nothing else to add, "no traffic" is a perfectly good contribution.
See also
External links
- On-Air Net Scraper at the App Store