ARRL Officers, Directors, Vice Directors, Section Managers, and Section Traffic Managers

As you know, the NTS 2.0 subcommittee of the ARRL Board’s Emergency Communications & Field Services Committee has been working diligently through weekly meetings as it develops a path forward for the modernization of the League’s National Traffic System.

Whether providing message-handling services directly to the public or as assistance to served agencies or partner organizations, key parameters of 3rd-party message handling by Radio Amateurs include:

     *  Systematic procedures understood and practiced by all

     *  Timely message delivery

     *  Accuracy in each delivered message

     *  Reliability of message delivery

To help develop a baseline against which future improvements in the System will be measured, the group has chosen to originate a test message from W1AW to each of you.  It is our hope that your message will come to you via an RF-only path that may include any combination of CW, voice, and/or digital modes.

When you receive your message, we are asking you to help us by including the following in an e-mail to ARRL’s Director of Emergency Management, Josh Johnston, KE5MHV, at the address at the bottom of this e-mail:

     *  Date and time of message delivery

     *  Callsign, name, and (if possible) telephone number of the person delivering the message to you

     *  Method of delivery (e.g., telephone call, in-person contact, e-mail, USPS mail, message left on answering machine, etc.)

     *  Message text — exactly as it was given to you, errors, and all

If we do not hear back from you within a reasonable number of days after your message is originated by operators at W1AW, we will contact you by e-mail or telephone to determine whether you received your message.

Once we have gathered your responses, we will summarize the results and share those findings with you.  In the weeks and months ahead, the subcommittee expects to periodically originate additional messages to various other addressee groups — not only to test different aspects of the modernization project, but also as a component of expanded training programs for current and new NTS participants.  In general, you will not have any future responses requested by us, but we will keep you informed as each new bundle of messages is readied for origination, so that you can answer questions from Members and others.  

Thank you for your assistance in helping to make the NTS a more relevant and reliable communications tool in today's modern world.

Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC

Chair, NTS 2.0 Working Group

Please reply with requested information (above) to jjohnston@arrl.org .

Sabrina Martin

Executive Assistant

ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio®

225 Main Street

Newington, CT  06111

(860)594-0242