The ESS Bulletin

August totals: QNI 347, per session 11.2 (Jul 10.3); QSP 40, per session 1.3 (Jul 1.3). A pretty good month overall, with a bump-up in checkins; the traffic count, however, remains anemic. Congratulations and thanks to our webmaster N2PEZ, this month's net-certificate recipient. A reminder that the sole requirement for an ESS certificate on card stock by mail is 80 points in a calendar year; you earn one point each time you check in and a bonus point for serving as net control (scheduled or fill-in). Speaking of which, the Help Wanted Department is open again. I haven't had to hang up the sign in many a moon, but AB2WB has had to step down from his Thursday NCS spot due to his responsibilities as caregiver for his wife. Pat took over the Thursday slot from WB2GTG in late 2012; you may remember Bill as the Sunday NCS before W2ITT. Pat's good signal, reliability and willingness to help with Southern Tier and Central New York traffic have always been very much appreciated. Our very best wishes are with him and Judith, and we hope to hear him on the air again in the future. WB2OCA emailed that he's been scarce on the air as his wife recovers from a replacement knee replacement after 17 years. Jim, who also checks into NYS (7 pm, also on 7110 for now), hopes to be around more now that the dust is settling. I really appreciate K2TV's keeping me on the email list for The Compass, the Great South Bay ARC's excellent monthly newsletter. Bob reminds us that there's no time like the present for ensuring that our antennas are as winter-ready as possible; with Western New York's recent appalling November lake-effect snowstorms, I now try to be prepared for God knows what by Halloween. Birthdays: September—W2ITT 28. October—None, as far as I know. Additions and corrections, preferably by radiogram, are always welcome!

Although I'm not active on the Western District Net due to time constraints, NYS manager KT2D emailed me and KA2GJV about a recent issue on the Capitol District Traffic Net (CDTN). Bob was baffled when two out-of-state stations (PA and MA) checked into the net via EchoLink with traffic; the MA station had traffic from Lowell to Watertown MA (a 20-minute drive apart), and the PA station had traffic for Ohio. I'm embarrassed to admit that what I know about EchoLink can be written in block letters on the head of a pin, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that both stations were on the wrong net. Bob suspects misuse of a "portal", and I wonder if he means the new NTS Radiogram Portal. Information about that portal is available in the August 5th NTS Letter, kindly forwarded to me by N2PEZ and available to ARRL members; I think Reiner told me how interested ARRL non-members can access it, but I can't remember at the moment. There's no better way to learn traffic-handling than by checking into nets, in my opinion, and Radio Relay international has an up-to-date net directory at https://radiorelay.org/files/reference/TrafficNets.pdf. Although each net has its own "vibe", it's good to participate in a net on one's home turf. If that's not possible, the ARRL has a virtual NTS training net (VNTN) Wednesdays at 7 pm Eastern time. If you're familiar with VNTN, its Zoom link changed on August 6th to bitl.to/4tL3 . Tools and expertise need to complement each other! Opinions differ about "crosstown" and other make-work traffic. I received several pieces of crosstown traffic for delivery when we lived in Queens and, frankly, thought they were dumb even when an old-timer decided that I needed the experience or something. Proponents say that any traffic is better than none; there's some validity in that, but I wonder how many former traffic-handlers--and their numbers are legion--have been dissuaded by messages they see as not worth sending. Balance is everything, here as elsewhere…

As mentioned last month, our Thursday net control AB2WB has illness in his family and is off the air for the foreseeable future. Pat has been forced to give up his Thursday net-control sked, and his help as an outlet for Binghamton-area and Leatherstocking Country traffic is much missed. K1SEI has been kindly picking up ESS on Thursdays, but Tage is our regular Friday net control as it is. Back in the day, ESS had a stable of alternate net controls in addition to its daily "regulars". That was then and this is now, though; with the abolition of the CW licensing requirement, there are fewer warm bodies on the CW traffic nets. I hope, however, that a station without a scheduled NCS slot would try running ESS on a Thursday with an eye on a regular slot. Net controlling a single session is certainly not a commitment to do so every week; it's just a way to try it out. If you've ever been asked to call the net by the NCS, running a net is more of the same--you send ESS DE N2ABC QNI K, and write down the checkins and traffic (if any). ESS, Lord knows, doesn't get much traffic; if a station lists traffic and there's an outlet on frequency—even to just bring the traffic to NYS at 7 pm, also on 7110 kHz for the summer—send both stations up 3 or 4 kHz to clear it. When there have been no more checkins in a couple of net calls, any traffic has been cleared and enough time has passed (generally 15 minutes), it's time to call it a net. There's no need to excuse stations individually (QNX) unless you need to kill time, although some NCSs do so routinely and one whom I know QNXes stations in groups; TU ESS QNF 73 DE N2ABC GE is fine. Sociability is a welcome fringe benefit of traffic-handling (we tend to rub shoulders with the same folks on a regular basis, after all), business comes first on a traffic net.

Net managers need a net report for each session, and that's no big deal either. The standard format for a CW net is NET NAME MONTH AND DAY QNI ___ QTC __/__ IN ___ (number of minutes), followed by your list of checkins. The net report can be listed on a future session of any net, or if you don't want to hunt for an errant net manager you can email it.

One request at this unusual time. Although the customary "cushion" to wait before picking up ESS is two minutes (generally three minutes on other nets, but our net meets at chow time and should be over when the Second Region Net meets at 6:30), hang back this time only if you're a scheduled NCS. If you're thinking of taking the plunge and running ESS ad hoc, please jump in at 6:00!