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ICOM radios. Good evening, everyone. It's time
for HamTalk Live episode number 189. NTS Message
Handling recorded live on Thursday, November
7th, 2019. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight, we're joined by Marcia Ford. W1U
and we'll take your calls live in just a few
minutes. Last week, John Portun, W6NBC was here
to talk about HOAs and stealth antennas. If you
missed that show, you can listen anytime. Just
go to hamptalklive .com or your favorite podcast
app or YouTube and you can listen to it whenever
you like. Or you can catch the rebroadcast on
WTWW. That's 5 0 8 5 a .m. Saturday evenings
and that's about about 6 30 p .m. Eastern time
on their lineup. Well a couple of comments here
before we go. There's been a ton of stuff going
on around here and Next Friday night, I'm kind
of excited. Val NV9L is going to be our guest
speaker at the Southern Indiana Amateur Radio
Association meeting here in Bloomington next
Friday. She's going to talk about emergency communications
and her experience in Puerto Rico. So I know
most of you aren't, but if you happen to be in
the area, We invite you to be there. It's going
to be over at the Indiana University campus.
So check out 73SIARA .org and you can check that
out. And looking forward to hearing what she
has to say. And I had to share this today at
school. It was a great experience. After we had
our ham radio club meeting, we had a Girl Scout
troop that visited and I was able to get six
Girl Scouts on the air. They came and visited
the shack today and they completed their Girl
Scout patch for radio and wireless technology.
So congratulations to them and a shout out to
John HK3C down in Columbia for getting on and
trying. We never could hear him and he couldn't
hear us. Um, so jumped on 40 and just started
tuning around and who do I find? But Vito VA
three VMD loud and clear on 40. So, uh, he quickly
agreed to talk to all six of these young ladies.
And, um, so Vito, thanks for letting us get those.
first contacts today for those six Girl Scouts.
It was a whole lot of fun. It was a blast to
see their faces as they're talking on the radio
to Ontario. So we'll come back. We're going to
talk message handling tonight. Get your questions
ready to go. If you're listening to us live on
Thursday night, you can ask your questions. Right
after the interview, we'll give you a chance
to do that, but I'll go ahead and give you the
phone number now so you can have it and write
that down, have it ready to go. It's 812 -638
-4261. 812 -NET -HAM -1. You can also send us
a question via Twitter. Our Twitter handle is
at HamTalk Live. So I'll be back with Marcia
right after this word. from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Thank you for a lovely
dinner. Aren't you going to ask me in to solder
some PL259s? Well, I do have some from Tower
Electronics. How can I refuse? Consider the sophisticated
quality of PL259s from Tower Electronics. From
soldering supplies to adapters, connectors to
cables, and all types of connectors, Tower Electronics
has the parts you're looking for. Well? Just
one more connector? You know I love your PL259s.
Then by all means, take some with you. Tower
Electronics, the Ham's Dime Store since 1978.
We're not sure what's up with the fifth dentist,
but four out of five dentists recommend listening
to HamTalk Live. Thanks to Scott and Jill at
Tower Electronics for bringing HamTalk Live your
way each and every week. Their HamFest schedule
coming up this weekend. It's Montgomery, Alabama.
November 8th and 9th. November 16th and 17th
will be in Fort Wayne, Indiana. December 6th
and 7th, Ocala, Florida. And December 13th and
14th... Plant City, Florida, that's near Tampa.
And if you can't make any of those, you can visit
them 24 -7 at PL -259 .com. My guest tonight
is Marcia Ford, KW1U. She's been a ham since
1980. and currently resides in Concord, Mass.
She was introduced to Ham Radio when her son
Dale, now K1WU, was 13 years old and took a summer
school class in Morse code from Ham. She's been
an active traffic handler in the ARRL's National
Traffic System since 1981, participating at all
levels from local and section to region and area
and even the Transcontinental Corps on both CW
and Sideband. She's a first region net control
operator and the first region net liaison to
the Eastern Area Net and she is the section traffic
manager. for the Eastern Massachusetts ARRL section.
So, Marcia, thank you so much for coming on the
show tonight and your net controls relieving
you here out of part of your duties tonight so
you can be here. Good evening to you, Neil, and
all your listeners there. Yeah, I had no problem
getting someone to cover for me. I normally would
be on a net at 930. Yeah Yeah, I was gonna say
you've got quite a string of Thursday night nets
now run them down for us because it was it was
pretty impressive Well, we have our section phone
net at six o 'clock, it's a Massachusetts Rhode
Island phone net and At seven o 'clock. We have
our CW section at Massachusetts Rhode Island
and they are I At 745, I'm on First Region Net,
1RN, and I go to Eastern Area. Well, I skipped
one. At 8 o 'clock, I do have a local net that
I also net control on on Thursday nights. At
830, I'm on Eastern Area net, and at 930, now
on 1RN again, late session. So it's a full night
on Thursdays. Boy, it is. That's a lot of nets
on the Thursday night. And I appreciate you getting
relief for a couple of those to stick with us
here a little longer tonight. And talk about
message handling. It's something we haven't talked
about on the show. We got some requests for this
topic. And I know that it's something that hams
aren't. All familiar with there. There's a lot
of hams out there that don't know how to pass
Formal traffic and you know, it's something I
picked up early on but it was something that
I had time to do and and it was a really big
thing because Sometimes that was the only Affordable
means of long -distance communication that was
timely it would it would beat the letters you
know that took a month from overseas and so it
was a it was a big thing so i i spent a lot of
time doing that when i was uh when i was a young
boy but um what does a new ham or a ham that
hasn't pass traffic before really need to know
about the delivery of a message. So if a message
comes in and they decide to take it and deliver
it, what do they need to know? Well, first of
all, when you take the message, you need to be
pretty confident that you've copied it correctly,
accurately. And we can go through that at some
point. But having copied it, you're quite sure
you have it correct. You need to be able to.
Most of the time, deliveries are made by phone,
although, as you know, today's world, a lot of
people don't answer their phone. They don't recognize
the number, and I'm one of those. I don't pick
it up. So it can be kind of difficult making
phone deliveries, but delivery can be also by
email. It could be by snail mail. We have one
guy in our section who rides a bicycle, and he
will deliver a message anywhere within about
a 40 -mile radius on his bicycle. Wow. On a bicycle.
Bicycle mobile. I used to do bicycle mobile.
That was fun. Yeah, he enjoys it. But if you're
going to make a phone call, there's several things
to keep in mind. You want to be sure that the
person gets a message. Very often you might get
a voicemail and you can leave a message, but
it's best not to actually read the message itself,
but to leave your name, your number. You always
want to introduce yourself, who you are, that
you're a ham radio operator, and that you have
a radiogram. We stress it. It's free, like a
free telegram, but it's handled by amateur radio.
It's going to whatever the individual's name
is and you always want to mention who it's from
so they Get right off the bat. They know you're
not a telemarketer So That's one of the things
some of the people will now do emails because
we can't get the phone So I also have people
in my section. They want to send an email to
give a little brief explanation in the beginning,
just to introduce themselves and where they got
the message. It's often something people wonder.
So some of the finer points of delivering traffic.
We have a lot of information available in our
methods and practices guideline. If people are
interested, it's very voluminous. publication,
it's on the Aero website, but it is very well
indexed, I think, and you can look for what particular
topic you're interested in. you know, like you
said, it's a challenge to make sure they understand
what's going on. And then, you know, just today,
I got three calls that, you know, were supposedly
from the Social Security Administration telling
me that I need to take care of this problem immediately.
And it's not. And so, you know, you want to ignore
those calls and And so that is an added challenge
these days because, yeah, I mean, I do the same
thing. If it's not a number I know, it goes to
voicemail and then I'll call back if that's it
because most of the time it's not somebody I
know. And so that's a challenge. Well, what about
sending a message? How do you format The message
and how is it sent? And I will say this before
I, before I turn it over to you that in the,
uh, promotions on the show for, uh, Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, and E ham and Reddit and
well, we didn't put it on, on, uh, Reddit and
E ham because we don't do graphics, uh, and QRZ.
So, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and QRZ,
I did put a picture of a sample radiogram form.
So, um, since this is radio and you can't look
at the form, if you have one of those around
and you want to see the form, I did send out
a picture of that. So tell us about how to send
a message, how it's formatted and how you go
about sending it. Okay, well, if you can have
a picture of this form in front of you, you can
understand what I'm talking about. One of the
primary things, parts of a radiogram is the header,
what we call the header or the preamble, which
contains very important information. One of the
advantages of what we do is that we could track
a message. We have a written record of it. And
we can always go back and find it, find out what
happened to it, if it gets lost for some reason.
So you'll notice at the top of the form, there
are boxes across there. There's eight boxes.
The six of those are absolutely mandatory. Two
of them are very optional. With the first box,
you'll have a message number and this is an identifier
for that message. That's your message number.
You assigned that number. A lot of people start
with one and just go sequentially. People have
various other numbering schemes, but that's up
to you. The next box is a precedence and that
establishes the priority of the message We have
four precedences emergency priority welfare and
routine emergency we I've never seen I've never
seen a formal written message with emergency.
Usually that's done more tactical but the priority
you will see with the officials of organizations
if you do emergency work or it may be a priority
if there's a time sensitivity to it. Health and
welfare is pretty obvious and then we have routine
which is mostly what we do. Routine messages
are what we practice on and that's one of the
reasons we We do this as much as we do because
we're ready, we've practiced, and we know what
to do if the emergency situation arises where
it's not the time to learn. The next box, the
handling instruction, and that's an optional
one. And what it is is the originator of the
message wants to add some additional information
for a delivering station. We can leave that for
another time, but as I say, that's optional.
And just a couple of examples of that would be
like, you want a return receipt or something
that is special about that delivery. Correct.
We use HX and then another letter between A and
G. So we would say Hotel X -Ray, Charlie, for
example, might say, please report back the date
and time of delivery. We want to know that it's
been delivered. Or we might use HXE, Echo. And
there will be a request for a reply back. So
something of that nature. Very good. And then
the next box is your station of origin. And that
is your call if you're formatting the message
and putting it on the air. You may be creating
your own message or you may help someone else,
a third party, put a message on the air. It would
be your call if you're the one that's formatting
that message and putting it on the air. The next
box is a check and that's a very important part
of the message because that's what helps us to
maintain accuracy. That is the number of word
groups in the text of the message. That number
has to agree with the number of words you see
below in the text, so we'll go through the text
later. The next box is a place of origin, and
if it's your own message, it would be your location.
But if it's for a third party, it would be their
location, whoever it needs to match with the
signature of the message. The next box is a time
file and we rarely use that, particularly for
routine messages, but it is optional if people
want to use that. And we generally use UTC time
in there because the message may be going across
time zones or maybe going to another country.
So to be consistent, we use UTC time there. And
then the final box is the date of the message
and I often use because I handle so many. The
date is very important if I need to locate it.
If you could tell me what date was in it then
that helps me to find it because I have so many
to go through. But you have the six parts then
that are absolutely mandatory and that's what
helps us keep track of a message. Following that
part of the message we have the address, the
name and address. It's important to have as much
information that would help someone to deliver
that message. If there's a ham call, you might
include that. You want to have a street address
if it has to be mailed, a city in town or town
and state. And a zip code is very important.
We also have a digital network and the digital
system of which I'm involved. forwards often
by zip code. So it's very important to have a
zip code in there. And then obviously the phone
number and also email address if you have anything
helping to get that message delivered. At the
end of this portion, we would have a break. We'll
go through that later when we do a sample message.
Then you have your text. We try to keep the text
to 25 words or less. It's not a hard and fast
rule, but that's encouraged to be succinct in
how you word a message and also to help cut down
the sending time to get it relayed. Following
the text, we have the signature. And I would
caution that people like to put things like 7
-3, best streak hours, Love whatever they put
that is all part of the text only thing in the
signature is the signature self Anything else
this person sending the messages wants to add
if they want to put their own phone number down
so the address he can can Call them by phone
So that is the format of the message And we can
go over at some point and what you might find
in the text And so forth. Yeah, I think I think
the breaks in the word count are probably the
most tricky for beginners because if you have
numbers and then you have periods which are x
-rays that they it's not really an x -ray it's
The term x -ray is used for a period for end
of sentence. And so that can get a little bit
tricky. So you can kind of point that out. But
I was going to ask you to kind of display and
sample what passing a message would sound like
and where the breaks are and everything. And
this is the wonders of live radio. We got a tweet.
Wall ago, and it was in the form of a message.
So I decided right before the show, right before
we went to air that I'd just go ahead and pass
this message to you and then you can critique
me and you can, you can use this as an example
and kind of explain what I was doing. So, uh,
thanks to Dave K five I X for sending in a tweet
in the form of a NTS message. We're, we're going
to. We're going to do this. So here we go. So
this is David's number 11 routine. Now, now you
hear you hear her typing. She's trying to keep
up with this. And you know, I used to I used
to write all these by hand when I did them. And
so I would leave a lot more space. I'm going
a little faster here because I don't want to.
you know put everybody to sleep as i'm doing
this but okay so it was number 11 routine hotel
x -ray golf from kilo five india x -ray a check
of 19 bracketville that's bravo radio alpha charlie
kilo echo tango tango Victor, India, Lima, Lima,
Echo, Brackettville, Texas, November 7th. Going
to Marsha Ford, NW1U. Break for text. Now at
this point I took the break. Yeah, okay. Oh good.
I Was just gonna say when you do break allow
a few seconds Before continuing and allow me
to break in if I need to fill what you've done
so far But if I don't respond to you, then you
can just keep going because I'm typing and then
I have to pick up that microphone and so forth.
So it makes it, it's better if you just keep
going is just allow a few seconds for a response.
Go ahead after the break. Here's the text. Thanks
for your visit to ham talk live. x -ray I look
forward to the podcast during my morning commute
x -ray seven three Break for signature. Signature
is Dave Kilo five India X -ray. End of message.
All right. So that's, that's what it sounds like.
So you, you critique what I did and, and, and
explain what I did there. Okay Well, first first
of all, I would say I Roger your message although
I think purse what I would like to Say I confirm
that ham talk live is one word It is on Twitter
it's the at ham talk live thing so it is actually
typed as one word Even though it's okay That
gives me the check of 19, and I can roger your
message. Okay, so you gave me the required information
and the preamble, including the check of 19,
and we will count as we get to the text. And
you gave me the town in Texas as Bracketville,
and you spelled it out for me, which was very
important because I've never heard of Brackenville,
so it's important, I think, to use phonetics.
We always use phonetics when spelling out proper
names and unusual spellings. Makes it easier
to copy. You gave me, after my call sign, which
he got was in W1U, I'm KW1U, but that's beside
the point, you gave me a break. And I said that...
as I mentioned before, you just need to pause
and I didn't need any fills at that point so
you were able to continue on and you gave the
the text at a nice relatively slow speed. It
was slow for me because I could have typed faster
but for someone writing it down you want to kind
of visualize you're writing it yourself if you're
reading a text. People, especially when they're
new, they tend to read fast. And a lot of people
who are copying by hand can't copy that fast,
so we always suggest that you kind of picture
in your mind that you're writing it down as you're
reading it. I personally copy five words to the
line. I've gotten used to doing that, so it makes
it easy to check the number of words I have in
there. I use the x -ray for a period. Twice and
that x -ray actually counts as a work group And
at the end of your text you said break which
gave me time to Ask for a fill if I needed it
and then you gave me the signature so Did a fine
job Oh, thank you Now we talked about x -ray
counting as one of the numbers, you know, one
of the word groups in the check. Numbers are
kind of confusing because if you spell out the
number, it's a word, but if you use the digit
for a number, how do you count those? All right.
When you gave me the 7 -3, you want to say, Figures,
7 -3. Otherwise, if you just said 7 -3, I would
write out 7, S -E -V -E -N, 3, T -H -R -E -E.
So when you're reading a message, you want to
use the term Figures, 7 -3, and then I know that's
what I need to type. So if we count the words,
thanks for your visit, too. I guess it was five
words. And then on the next line, I take ham
talk live, x -ray, I look forward. That was another
five word groups. And then we get to the next
line, to the podcast, during my. And that's another
five words. And then finally, morning commute,
initial x -ray. And we always say initial. X
-ray or letter or initial X -ray or We need to
preface that so that It makes for an easier copy
and then you say figure seven three which is
four words in that so we had Three lines of five
and one of four totaled up to 19 and I got the
correct check So I I think I did pretty well
All right. Well, that's how it works. So I should
have said figures or numbers I sometimes I'll
do numbers, but yeah, that should have should
have said figures but I got everything else I
think so So that's how you do it. So what we're
gonna do we're run a little over. So we're gonna
take a break We're gonna come back. We're gonna
take your questions And so we'll talk about this
some more and I'll be back with Marcia right
after this word from ICOM America right here
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-HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now here's more
HamTalk Live. Amtoc Live with Neil Rapp! Ham
talk live comes your way every Thursday night
at ham talk live comm and thanks to icon America
For bringing you this show each and every week
check them out at icon America comm slash Amateur
we're on the air every Thursday night 9 p .m..
Eastern time at ham talk live comm Check us out
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And now
it's time for your questions. So give us a call
if you have a question for Marcia at 812 -NET
-HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Oh, wait a minute.
I should have said, I should have said figures.
Figures 8 1 2 6 3 8 4 2 6 1 or you can tweet
us It's at ham talk live and if you're listening
to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition You won't
be able to reach us because it's live on Thursday
night. So Give us call 8 1 2 6 3 8 4 2 6 1 So
we've got a tweet and a comment here on Spreaker.
First of all, Jill KD8QGA is in the shack and
yeah, she used to be a troop leader so she enjoyed
the Girl Scout thing today and I'm just glad
they have that patch. That was a good move. We
also have a message here. We got another message.
We've started something here, Marcia. We've got
a message here that came in over the the Spreaker
chat from Smokey McCray So and I'm I'm I'm gonna
just read this like fast pace here We're not
gonna we're not gonna copy it, but it's number
357 Wow, that's That's a lot of messages. Number
357 routine, HXC from N5 MKY with a check of
25, Battle Creek, Michigan, November 7th, going
to Marsha Ford, KW1U. Hello Marsha, X -Ray, good
to hear you on HamTalk Live, X -Ray, good to
hear you without QSN and QSB. See you on the
EAN Smoky N5 MKY. All right, well smokey's listening
let's say hello because I've heard smoky on Eastern
area 90 checks in when I'm net control So I thought
we's good to have him there and I thank him for
the radiogram And you can send him an HXC saying
it was delivered Okay, we'll do that. Hang here.
Let me type that delivered. There we go. Okay
got it All right. So we've, we've, we've delivered
our message. So that's what, what it's about.
And I'm, I'm glad we're kind of having some fun
with this tonight because it can be, it can be
a fun thing. It, it's just, uh, it's something
that you gotta learn and you gotta learn, you
know, where the X -ray is and where the breaks
are. And, you know, and all those little things,
but you know, people can kind of help you through
that. Um, and. kind of you know like anything
else it takes some practice it takes some some
teaching and learning and and hopefully we've
got some people started on that tonight oh i
hope so i say i've done it for a lot of years
now it's been a lot of fun uh we have our section
nets and our local nets where we do the training
that's what they're there for is to help people
to to learn and to be able to practice so that
they feel comfortable doing it. Okay that number
again 812 -638 -4261. If you have a question
about traffic handling give us a call or give
us a tweet or if you're on Spreaker you can type
something in the chat there. Now let's talk about
some of these training nets and nets that are
passing these. We talked about all the ones you're
on on Thursday night. So explain what the difference
is between like a local net and a region net
and a district net, an area net. How do all those
work and interface with each other? Well, the
national traffic system, which was developed
after World War II by George Hart, W -1 and J
-M devised a layer network in a layer of nets
and also in a sequence of nets. We start with
the lower layer of the local net. These are small
area nets. They might be on a local repeater.
Then we have section nets. We have a section
-wide net. In many sections, it covers a whole
state. And these are also for training nets,
these are on HF. And then in order to get traffic
moved out of your local area, you need to have
liaisons to the next higher level, which is a
wider geographic area, where we go into the region
net. In my case, we go into one RN. You're in
Indiana, I believe you're in nine RN. And then
from the region area, For example, our region
covers all of New England, the six states of
New England. Then we have second region, third
region, fourth, and so forth. Then we go to the
next level, wider area. We have the area nets,
and there are three of these area nets across
the country, one in eastern, one in the central
part of the country, and one in the western part
of the country. And depending upon where your
message is going, it would go up from one level
to the next, and it can get off at any point.
And then it gets up to the eastern area net.
If it's going beyond the area net, that's where
you have your transcontinental core. This is
not a net, but it's a group of individual hams
who have a director and they keep one -on -one
schedules with other people from other areas.
Or in some cases, like from Eastern to Central,
we actually go from Eastern area net right into
Central area net. But it's a way of getting traffic
moved across the country. And when I speak a
sequence, we have a section level net in the
evening. It starts at seven o 'clock. goes to
the region at 745 and then to the eastern area
net at 830. And then traffic comes back down,
anything coming back to 1RN is going to come
to the first region net and then it's going to
come down to the section level net where it will
be set out for delivery. So it's just a very
effective network for getting traffic moved from
anywhere in the country. So if you want to get
on and send a message to somebody you can jump
in where You can get on your local net you can
get on your section that You can't even go to
into the region that although As you get up to
the different level of nets, they get a little
faster They expect that you're more knowledgeable
about traffic net. So especially if you get to
the area net They expect you to have some experience
and know what you're doing. But anyway, any of
your local nets, section nets, it's a good place
to start. All right. We'll check out your local
net. Go ahead. Each net should be having a liaison
station that's going to go up. Take that traffic
up to the next level net. So so check out the
the net directory you can you can check that
out on on the ARL org website and you can find
where those nets are and and if you have a local
net that handles traffic then you can you can
just Send it there and it'll it'll go on up the
line and and get to where it's supposed to go.
So That's a good rundown of all the different
nets and so that's somewhere to start so check
out your local net and And try it out sometime
and then be that'd be good. Well, let's see if
we have any more messages coming in or Any comments
here before we close down because we are start
to run out of time here And let me refresh here.
Okay. Don't see anything over there And it looks
like we're good there. So, okay. I'm very good.
Well, I hope that that some people have gotten
some experience here By listening to to us, you
know past one of these and all the rundown of
all those boxes at the top and how to do that
and and one thing I didn't put in the script
and and we we don't have to get into this a whole
lot, but If you get into this more there are
some standard messages So that you don't have
to write all of that stuff out. So if you want
to say happy birthday I think is that arl 42
46 Forty -six. Okay. So there are these standard
numbered radiograms that have standard messages
that you can throw into the message. So talk
a little bit about that and how those are in
the check. How do you handle those? All right.
There is a listing of what we call ARRL numbered
radiograms. You can find those also on the ARRL
.org website. There's a number of them. Some
of them are used more for emergency use and some
are for general use. What they do is to shorten
the message ideally and it allows for faster
transmission of a message. If you find one that's
appropriate to use, by all means use it if you
wish. However, when you do send a message with
an ARL numbered radiogram in it, you're going
to, in the check up at the top, under the count,
it's going to be, if it's instead of a check
of, say, 19, it would be a check of ARL19, ARL19.
that indicates that there is one of these messages
in the text. Now, in the text, you're going to
spell it out. You're going to say A -R -L, letter
group, A -R -L, 40, and you're going to spell
40, Foxtrot, Oscar, Romeo, Tango, Yankee, six.
I spell Sierra, India, x -ray. You're on HF especially.
This is important because conditions can be pretty
rough. But it's important to spell it out like
that. And then some of them will have blanks
that you fill in. And after you do your ARL and
the number, you would fill in the blanks in the
text. Obviously, when you're delivering a message,
you're going to need to translate that to the
recipient because they're not going to know what
you're talking about. So you have to look those
up and then you can read it. And so maybe it's,
you know, trying to think of one of those has
blank in it. Arrive safely at. Blank I think
is maybe one of them something like that. It's
probably one of them. Yeah, we see a lot of you
see if you can't deliver a message You need to
send the service message back letting the origin
and know you were not able to deliver it and
you can use what we call ARL 67 and That has
blanks after it because you would identify the
message. It would be the message number and it
might be the call sign of the recipient or the
last name of the recipient or something like
that. And then you would give a brief explanation
why. Those are the blanks that you'd be filling
out in that. For example, no answer to phone
after three days or number is disconnected or
something like that. So that's one with a blank.
Those are are great for you know standard things
that you say over and over again it you can abbreviate
them with those and and somebody came up with
a funny idea and and they came up with this parody
of the AR RL number of radiograms and it was
the RAA L number of radiograms and I always got
a laugh out of them because it would be like
happy birthday to you and yours So it'd be okay
your entire family has the same birthday or There's
a series of them one of them was I arrived safely,
but my baggage is lost My baggage arrived safely,
but I am lost and The plane arrived safely, but
I and my baggage are lost So yeah, they had some
pretty funny parodies of those numbers, but yeah,
the numbers help shorten the message. It's kind
of like, you know, those tiny URLs, if you're
familiar with those, that you've got this great
big long web address, but then if you do the
little tiny URL, it shortens it. Well, we are
out of time, Marcia, but thank you so much for
coming on and teaching us about message handling
and telling us about all these things. And I
appreciate you taking time out and, like I said,
getting coverage on your nets to be here tonight.
So thank you very much. Well, thank you, Neil,
for inviting me. It's been a pleasure. we get
some new hams new traffic cameras out of it all
right well that is a wrap for this week's edition
of ham talk live thanks to my guest marcia ford
kw1u and everyone out there in cyberspace for
listening and typing in and invite you back next
thursday night at 9 p .m eastern time when becky
schoenfeld w1bxy will be here to talk about what
goes into making Qst magazine and also the new
on the air magazine that's coming out soon For
a list of all of our upcoming guests visit ham
talk live comm and and one last thing if you
Are around next week and are watching ham nation.
We've got a big announcement coming from youth
on the air camp So so tune in and and I think
you're gonna really like it. So check that out.
We'll be on the air next week over on Ham Nation
for a while. So thanks to everybody for helping
out with that and you'll find out more when you
tune in on Wednesday. So if you like our show,
HamTalk Live, Please consider leaving us a review
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find us a little bit faster So for now, this
is Neil rap WB 9 VPG saying seven three seven
five and may the good DX be yours