As ham radio operators we have all had to handle traffic of some kind from routine to emergency. This training topic is meant as a review of the different types of traffic and their priority. All matterial was taken from the url http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/forms/fsd3.html. This is the arrl radiograms, but following this listing is the traffic information.
The basic form of a message is:
number type (handling instructions) (originating call) check (originating town) (recipient's name)
street address
city, state zip
phone number
text
signature
I want to focus on the types of traffic here as everything else should be self-explanitory. There are four different types of traffic which I will discuss in the following paragraphs.
The highest priority type is "emergency". This is always the first type of traffic that a net controler will ask for. This is because it is the most important and needs to get through before anything else.
The next highest priority is "priority". Just like emergency it is also time sensitive, but it is not quite as important. It is mainly used for injuries or death notices in an emergency area.
After emergency and priority traffic comes "welfare" traffic. This type of traffic is just that inquiries about the health and welfare of people. This also may be used to indicate when everything has been cleared up in an emergency situation.
The lowest priority is "routine" traffic. These are every day messages. They most likely will never be used in a disaster. If a message is designated routine it may not be handled depending on other traffic types.
These are the different types of traffic that will be handled on ham radio. I hope this review is helpful to those who have never handled traffic before. I also hope it is helpful just as a review for those of us who have handled many pieces of traffic both in and out of emergency situations.