1: Basic Training

2: Practical Experience

3: Equipment

4: Message Handling

Message Handling

Don't speculate. Do not speculate on anything relating to an emergency!
There may be hundreds of people listening to what you say (Amateur Operators, Media AND Public - via scanners) and any incorrect information could cause a panic.

If your served agency INSISTS on an estimate, you may provide that information, so long at you make it - very - clear that it is an estimate. For example - "Estimated number of spare shovels at fire base three is twelve" - would be acceptable. First choice is NO speculation.

Pass messages exactly as written: Your job as a communicator is to pass traffic as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore you will NOT change any message as you handle it. If you note an inaccurate word count in NTS traffic, you will maintain the original count and note the corrected count received at your station.

Not all tactical messages will be in NTS format. It is important that you understand that much of the tactical information being passed during an event may not be in NTS format. It will have much of the same information, such as:
Name, Agency and title of the originator
Name, Agency and title of the recipient
Date, Time and Priority of the message
Body of the message but may not be in NTS format.


excerpt from ARRL Emergency Communications Course I