By Daniel Taverne
Formal traffic nets are interesting exercises aren’t they?
I like all the different preambles out there and the different personalities providing voice to them. What’s more interesting is how personalities change when speaking the net preamble.
Operators I’ve known all my life as “nice guys” turn into pseudo-fascists as they curtly point out, “Do not transmit unless asked to do so by net control.” And yet, not one of those Net Controls has ever actually gotten around to asking me to transmit.
When I heard, “Stations with an emergency can utilize the double break…” , I wondered why they wouldn’t suggest saying, “help”.
At the beginning of the Freewheeler’s net on 3.916, the net control says, “Although this is not an emergency net we will pass along any emergency traffic as fast as humanly possible.” There’s something kind of humorous about this phrasing. Like it probably won’t get passed fast enough, so don’t blame us for being only human.
Some people get to use ARES nets as a chance to be recognized for the quality and originality of their equipment configuration. The Net Control will say, “stations are encouraged to indicate if you are low power, emergency power, or portable when checking in.” And you know, almost every net there is at least one guy, blasting the loudest signal, saying he is all three of them.
Net Control will say, “Anyone with traffic, call now”. Stations will call, listing traffic. Once all traffic listings are taken, and stations with or without traffic are requested, he’ll ask every single station, “do you have traffic?”
Guys, how about from now on assuming ‘no traffic’. If they have traffic to list, they’re supposed to list it when checking in. If they don’t list any, they probably don’t have any.
I like how people on VHF repeater nets sometimes ask for relays. What’s even funnier than that is when someone actually has the relay.
There are Skywarn nets preambles. It’s interesting how Net Control will say, “All stations this frequency…” Isn’t it pretty obvious to stations on the particular frequency it is they who are being addressed. You could probably do away with the “this frequency” phrase, huh? It does sound good though, and isn't that the point?
With all the preambles out there for the different nets, I think hams who regularly participate in nets could be getting "preamble overload".
Preamble overload causes hams to selectively disregard instructions within the preamble. "Stations with a relay, please say relay and give your call sign only" and "When checking in, please give your call signs phonetically" I find are often ignored.
All this said, it takes a village. And isn't that what we hams are? We are a community of hobbyists who have a unique ability to use our craft as a means of providing public service.
