Voice Procedures for Subnet Control Operators

Opening a Subnet

At the beginning of a subnet, you should say

“This is <FCC call sign, first name> Subnet Control for today’s Citywide Deployment Exercise in the <your region name> region. This subnet is operating on <subnet frequency> without a repeater. Make sure your transceiver is not using a repeater offset as an offset will keep us from hearing your transmissions.”

Checking in Stations

The following are considerations for checking stations into your net.  The specific language to use is provided in a subsequent section, Recommended Check-In Procedure below.

There are at least two things to consider when choosing a check-in procedure:

(1) How many operators you expect.

(2) Over what amount of time you expect the check-ins to occur.

If you are operating a subnet involving many teams during a scheduled exercise you may find that calling for all check-ins will cause a pile up and a lot of doubling.  More likely, however, the check-ins will naturally spread out over quite a few minutes for two reasons (a) The operators will probably need to check into a Resource Net first and arrive on your frequency over several minutes.  (b) During an actual deployment operators will become ready to check in over an extended period of time. So, unless your subnet is scheduled to open at a particular time and you expect many operators to be ready to check in at that time you probably don’t need to divide the check ins ranges of call-sign suffixes although you are free to do so if you wish.

In fact, your challenge may be quite the opposite: Your operators will arrive over an extended period of time and any information you provide before checking people in will only be heard by a few operators.  

Compiling a Roster of Teams

To facilitate communication between teams and between teams and the ECC you should create a table of ARO tactical call signs and the NET teams or neighborhoods that each team ARO represents. See Instructions for using Stations Participating Form.

Recommended Check-In Procedure

This example of check-in language is provided as a convenience.  Feel free to modify it as circumstances dictate.

A.  This is <your FCC call sign, first name> Subnet Control for the <your region name> region.  

When I call for check-ins, please give your tactical call sign.  When I recognize you, please give your first name, your full team name slowly and then your FCC call sign slowly using ITU phonetics.  Please come now.

[Check in stations. Record at least the tactical call signs and the team name(s) associated with the call sign.  Recording the operator name and FCC call sign is optional.]

B. [Choose a station already checked in] There may be stations that cannot hear me that would like to check in.  <Tactical call sign>, please call for check-ins on my behalf, mentioning the name(s) of this region. If you receive a response, please acknowledge the information by repeating it.  I will then confirm that I have heard it or ask for a “say again”.  <Tactical call sign> please proceed with a call for check-ins.

C. There are probably other operators who have not arrived on this frequency yet so we’ll wait a few minutes.  In the meantime, if any station has questions, please come now with your tactical call sign.

[Respond to any questions and then repeat your request for questions.  If you don’t get any questions, say:]

Nothing heard. This is <FCC call sign> operating as <your tactical call sign based on your region name> standing by.

[Wait a few minutes. And then go back to Step A above]

[After you think you have checked in almost all of your stations proceed as follows]

D. This is <your FCC call sign, your first name>, subnet control for today’s Citywide Exercise in the <your region name> region. This subnet is operating on <subnet frequency> without a repeater. Make sure your transceiver is not using a repeater offset as an offset will keep us from hearing your transmissions.

Our purpose is to facilitate communication capabilities between individuals, teams, subnets, and the Emergency Coordination Center. Our format is the following

We will start by finishing check-ins.

After all stations in our region are checked in, I will leave this frequency briefly to provide my roster of check-ins to the Command Net.  When I do so, I will be asking for volunteers to serve as temporary Subnet Control.  If you are willing to do so, please consider helping out and speak up when I call for volunteers.

I will call for formal traffic on a regular basis. When I do so, please provide counts of messages you have that you have not previously given me.  As you know, the precedence levels are emergency, priority, health & welfare and routine.  When I call for your traffic, please give the number of messages you have at each precedence level. I will then take messages with highest precedence first.  

You may also have tactical messages such as questions, requests or information.  Please assign such traffic precedence as well.  If you have emergency messages while I am handling priority traffic, you may interrupt me by giving the prowords “Emergency”.  Likewise, use the proword Priority if you have Priority messages while I’m handling messages of lower precedence. In each case please wait to be recognized before proceeding with your message. If I don’t recognize you it may be that we doubled or there are propagation issues.  If that is the case, wait for a pause and give the proword again.  If you hear another station giving such a proword that I am not recognizing, please use the proword “Relay” so that I can recognize you and ask you to provide a relay.

During today’s exercise please use your tactical call sign but give your FCC call sign at the end of each communication.

If you need to leave the subnet before it ends, please check out with me first.  Likewise, inform me if you need to leave the subnet temporarily.

E. Are there any other stations that would like to check in? Please give your tactical call sign.  When I recognize you, please give your first name, your full team name slowly and then your FCC call sign slowly using ITU phonetics.  Please come now.

[Check in stations as before]

F. [Same as Step B above]

G. I will now read the roster of stations who have checked in so far. When I read your tactical call sign, please respond by repeating that call sign two times so other stations can determine whether they can hear you. If any station hears a response that I did not acknowledge please give the proword Relay.

[Read list of tactical call signs, pausing for each station to reply with the same call sign twice. Confirm that you have heard by saying “Thank you <tactical call sign>”.]

H. [If you did not receive a response from a station that previously checked in, choose a station that did respond and ask them to repeat the tactical call sign that did not check in.]

I. I will now read the roster of stations again.  This time, when I read your tactical call sign, please respond by saying “I can hear” followed by the tactical calls of the stations that you can hear fairly well including Net Control. Then end by saying “This is” followed by your own tactical call sign, your FCC call sign and the proword “Out”.  I will acknowledge each response. If any station hears a response that I did not acknowledge please give the proword “Relay.”

[Read list of tactical call signs, pausing for each station to reply with the list of tactical call signs they can hear followed by their own tactical and FCC call signs. Confirm that you have heard by saying “Thank you <tactical call sign>”.

J.  [If time permits you can allow stations that are checked in to ask questions.  Don’t forget to return to the main sequence – Step 7 – to do things like contacting Tactical Net to report your roster.]

What To Do If Stations Attempt to Check-In That Are Not Part of the Exercise

Most amateur radio nets attempt to be very open to guests. During exercises and deployments, however, it is usually inappropriate for guests to check in. If a station attempts to check in that is not part of the exercise or deployment you should politely explain that the circumstances do not allow the extra time that would be required to communicate with guests.  

What To Do If More Than One Operator from the Same Team Tries to Check In

A slightly different circumstance occurs when more than one operator from a particular team attempts to check in.  If this happens you should explain that only one operator should represent a particular team at a time.  You can also mention that they should use the same tactical call sign if they decide to change the operator representing their team during the exercise.

Calling for Relays

The strength of communication will vary from exercise to exercise and operator to operator based on factors like location, elevation, available transmission power and sensitivity and selectivity of receivers. Note that there are many combinations of these factors in a region including a subnet controller who may be in a different location and team AROs in varying locations depending on who is available and the nature of the exercise or deployment.  This unpredictability of simplex communication means that you and the other operators must be ready to ask for and provide relays.  There are at least two cases to consider.

1. Stations you may not hear.  To account for this possibility, expect that other stations may offer to provide a relay by using the proword Relay preceded by the precedence of the traffic they wish to relay.  If no precedence is given, you should assume that its precedence is Priority.  If you are not sure that your team AROs are aware of their relay responsibility, you should ask if any station has a relay. When an ARO indicates that they have a relay tell them to go ahead if you are not handling traffic of higher precedence, there is no traffic of higher precedence and there is no traffic of equal precedence ahead of the requested relay. Otherwise, tell the relaying station to stand by after obtaining their tactical call sign.
2. Stations that may not have heard you.  To account for this possibility, choose a station that you believe to be in a different part of your region with equipment sufficient to be heard by other stations and ask them to relay your announcement or request and stand by for them to either say “Nothing heard” or “Relay”.

Appointing a Temporary Subnet Controller

There are several circumstances when you may need to leave the subnet and to appoint an interim subset control.  Examples of such circumstances are when you are called away by the ECC, when you need to send Winlink messages, and when you need to take a break.  In these cases you should consider three criteria (a) The apparent skill level of operators checked into your subnet (b) their ability to hear and be heard by other stations in your region. The latter will be influenced by the equipment they have at their disposal and (c) their location within your region.  Choose an alternate who is a good fit for the role and is willing to take it on and inform the operators of your decision.  When you return, wait for a break in the communication, announce your return and resume your role as subnet control operator.

Transmitting a Roster to ECC

After completing checking stations into your subnet, you need to switch to Tactical Net on MC-8 to give them your check-in roster. You should do this even if you’re not sure that all stations in your region have checked in. Before leaving the frequency ask one of the AROs on frequency to serve as temporary subnet control. Then transition to Tactical Net and give them the tactical call signs of the AROs that checked into your subnet.  Tactical Net may ask you for clarification of what teams are represented by each tactical call sign. When that information is acknowledged, return to your subnet and resume SNC role.

If additional teams check into your net later, you will need to contact Tactical Net again and provide them the additional stations. Likewise if teams check out before the end of the deployment or exercise.

Here is a sample script for reporting your roster:

I now need to leave this frequency to report my roster of checked-in stations to the Tactical Net operator at the Emergency Coordination Center.  I will return to this frequency in about 5 minutes.

[Transition to MC-8 to contact Tactical Net]

[If you hear activity, wait for a quiet time or for Tactical Net to ask for additional check-ins]

[You] <Give your region name as your tactical call sign.>

[Tactical Net]: <Your tactical call sign> Go ahead

[You] I have a team roster to report.

[Tactical Net]: Ready to copy.

[You] Please copy,

[You]<The tactical call sign of your first check in> representing <Team name> Break [long pause while Tactical Net records the information]

[Tactical Net]: Continue.

[You] <Second tactical call sign> representing <Team name>. Break.

[Tactical Net] Continue.

[You] <Third tactical call sign> representing <Team Name> Break

[Continue as above until the last tactical call sign. For the last one say the following instead of “Break”]

[You] End of roster.  How copy?

[Tactical Net] I roger your roster.

[At this point Tactical net may have questions such as which teams are represented by which call signs if that wasn’t clear enough to them while you read your roster.]

[Tactical Net] <Your tactical call sign> You are released to return to your subnet.

[You] <your FCC call sign> as <your tactical call sign> Clear.

[Return to your subnet frequency.]

Handling Traffic from Emergency Operations Center to NET Teams

You may receive a voice message from the Command operator that is intended to be conveyed to the participating teams in one of the following formats:

1. A formal message on a NET Form 8 or ICS 213. See this sample Form 8 for an example.
   1. The message does not appear to need a reply.
   2. The message requests a reply or implies the need for one.
2. A tactical message that is not conveyed via an ICS form.  For example, “Incident Command has informed us  that water trucks will start becoming available by this time tomorrow.”
   1. The message does not appear to need a reply.
   2. The message requests a reply or implies the need for one.

Be sure to log the voice message on your NET Form 6.

Note: If you receive a message that does not include words equivalent to “This is an exercise”, add those words before voicing the message to your AROs.

Consistent with the precedence of the message relative to other traffic you are handling and according to the format of the message you received (see above),

1. Inform the AROs checked into your subnet that they should prepare to copy a formal message onto a Form 8 and proceed accordingly.
   1. No further action is required by you.
   2. Be prepared to receive a reply to the formal message from each ARO in your region after some delay at the team level. See Handling Replies to ECC Traffic Originally Received by Voice  in Winlink Procedures for Subnet Control Operators.  .  
2. Inform your AROs that they should prepare to copy a tactical message that they should pass onto their teams’ leadership and then read the message to them. You may need to clarify to the AROs that they are not required to transcribe such tactical messages on a NET Form 8 as any way of transcribing such messages is acceptable as long as they have a way of delivering the message to the appropriate team member(s).
   1. No further action is required by you.
   2. Be prepared to receive a reply to the tactical message from each ARO in your region after some delay. Each time you receive such a reply, use Winlink Express to compose a new plain text message (without using a template). Select your Winlink Tactical Address in the From field. Fill in the To field with PDXECCMSGC-1.  In the Subject field, put “Reply to voice message” followed by the date and time of the original message.

Handling NET Form 8 Traffic from NET Teams Including Triage

Both formal messages and tactical messages should be triaged by precedence during exercises and deployments.  Unless PBEM specifies otherwise, standard ARRL precedence levels should be used:

Ask stations in your subnet if they have formal traffic ready to transmit.  (Such traffic should be on NET Form 8.)  If so, ask them to provide counts of available messages not previously forwarded by the four precedence levels. Use the Traffic Count Worksheet to keep track of the number and precedence of messages that are ready for your to handle. Take Emergency messages from all your stations before moving on to take Priority messages.  Likewise, take Priority messages before Health & Welfare and take any Routine messages last and only if you have time.  

If some of the traffic is addressed to someone at the Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) see Preparing Your Traffic and Notifying ECC.

Traffic from teams may include replies to messages from ECC that you delivered to them earlier.  See Handling Replies to Winlink Formal Traffic.

Closing your Subnet and Checking Out

At the end of an exercise or deployment you should close your subnet. One method for doing so is to call the role of tactical call signs and expect each station to respond with <FCC call sign> operating as <tactical call sign> Clear.  You should then close the net by saying “This is <FCC call sign> closing this <regional name> Region Subnet Clear at <time> local time.”

You should then transition to Tactical Net and check out.

Transferring Control to a New Subnet Controller

If you transfer responsibility for your subnet to another controller without closing the net, you should say “This is <your FCC call sign> transferring control of this <region name> Region Subnet to <FCC call sign of new operator>.”

The new operator should say “This is <FCC call sign>, <First Name> taking control of this <region name> Region subnet.”

Like all other events, the change of control operator should be logged with the same information as you announced over the air.

Facilitating Communication Between Teams

Teams may need to contact other teams to share information or coordinate their activities.  These contacts may be (a) tactical communication using a frequency proposed by one of the teams; (b) tactical communication using a prearranged frequency; (c) formal messages between teams in the same region using NET Form 8; or (d) formal messages between teams in different regions. During the exercise you should expect some teams to use option (a).

a. Tactical communication between teams using a frequency proposed by one of the teams.

The two teams usually won’t choose a frequency in advance. In this case, the team seeking to initiate the communication should find a frequency that appears to be available and ask the subnet controller for help in communicating the proposed frequency to the other team and asking if they are willing to change frequencies. The team may want to propose a UHF frequency or possibly a VHF frequency unless cell service is available.  Unless additional Amateur Radio operators are available to handle the direct communication, one or both of the operators may need to temporarily check out of the subnet and then check back in when they are finished with their direct tactical communication. In this case they should keep their direct communication as short as possible so they won’t miss important communications from the ECC.

b. Tactical communication between teams using a prearranged frequency

Tactical communication may be somewhat easier if the teams involved have agreed to use a particular frequency for such situations.  If that is the case they may proceed to attempt to establish communication using the agreed upon frequency, assuming the other team is monitoring the frequency.  Otherwise one team may need to use the regional frequency to let the other team know that they want to establish direct communication. Also, if either operator is currently checked into a regional subnet, that operator should find an alternate operator to take over with subnet communications or the alternate operator may handle the inter-team communication.  If the former is chosen, the operator currently checked into the subnet should inform the subnet controller before leaving the subnet frequency.  If no alternate operator is available and communication with the other team is particularly important, the operator can request to be checked out of the subnet and then check back in when they have complicated their direct communication.

c. Routing formal messages within a region

The other major case is when a team has a formal message that they want to route to another team.  In some cases they may be able to do this using the tactical communication method above.  In other cases it may be better to route a formal message via their subnet controller.  If the team to receive the message is in the same region the subnet controller may be able to read the message to them.  Or, if there is a strong simplex communication path between the two teams, the subnet controller may give the originating team permission to use the subnet frequency to read the message to the receiving team.

d. Routing formal messages between regions

The situation is even more complicated if the team to receive the messages is checked into a different regional subnet than the originating team.  In that case, the subnet controller may need to route the message through the ECC radio room via the Tactical Net.  Alternatively, the controller could transcribe the message into a Winlink ICS 213 and route it to the other subnet via a Winlink gateway. The receiving subnet controller could then read the message to the receiving team.