New Zealand Net News Nr 19, 14 December 2019

This is a fortnightly newsletter about the New Zealand Net.
If you would like to be notified by email message when a new edition is published, please contact ZL1NZ.
You are also welcome to browse our newsletter archive.

Highlights

In November, total check-ins to the net (153) were down from the previous month (176), but we set a new record for the number of stations checking in at least once during the month (21). Thanks everyone for supporting the NZ Net.

Here’s our net report for November, which was sent during the first net session of December:

NR68 R ZL1NZ 51/48 AUCKLAND 0800Z 2DEC19
=
NZ NET
=
NOVEMBER QNI ZL1AJY 7 ZL1AYN 3 ZL1NZ 20 ZL1PC 2
ZL1RD 3 ZL1RED 3 ZL2GD 15 ZL2LN 9 ZL2MS 10
ZL2WT 14 ZL3AA 1 ZL3AB 2 ZL3DMC 11 ZL3RX 9
ZL4CU 6 ZL4FZ 9 ZL4KX 9 ZL4LDY 9 VK2IOW 1
VK3DRQ 9 ZL/G3WSD 1 TOTAL 153 QTC 14
=
ZL1NZ

Holiday schedule

You might be wondering if the NZ Net will be closing during the holiday season. Well, things might get a bit slow, but it is my hope that the Net will always be there in some form.

Please remember that if a designated NCS does not appear within 1 minute of net time, any operator can assume control. If you don’t feel up to running a formal net, then please at least put out a CQ and have a bit of a ragchew.

Let’s keep CW alive on 3535 (I think I just made a new slogan) all summer long. 🙂

As for the newsletter, this will be the last edition for this year, and it will resume on 11 January 2020. So please have a safe and happy holiday season.

NZ Net audio archive

Missed an NZ Net session?

You might try visiting the online audio archive. It has all of our trivia messages and monthly net reports, plus examples of traffic handling and even a few entire net sessions, recorded at ZL1NZ.

Visit the archive

NZ Net Trivia going well

I’d like to thank all the ops who have joined in with our weekly NZ Net Trivia. Questions are sent each Wednesday and stations have until the following Wednesday to send their answers via radiogram.

The questions are getting a little more challenging, but it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to find the answers with a bit of clever searching.

If anyone has feedback on our Trivia game, please feel free to contact me on air or via email. And if a question isn’t clear then don’t hesitate to send me a QTC seeking clarification!

Your answer can be as short or as long as you like (but no more than 25 words in the text please).

For the answer to a recent trivia question about the letter “P”, see the Net Tip at the end of this newsletter.

Straight Key Night

Conditions were good (low QRN) for SKN on Sunday 1 December and it was nice to hear a few NZ Netters taking part.

Please remember to get your logs and summary sheets to me no later than the end of December, so that I can announce the winners 1 January on NZ Net.

BBC radio feature on high-speed telegraphy

The BBC Sounds service has just posted a radio show about the first European High-Speed Telegraphy competition, held in Moscow in 1983.

I don’t know when it was recorded but it’s interesting to hear what a big event it was, and continues to be, in eastern Europe especially. But for some unknown reason, the BBC producers keep inserting bits of slow-speed Morse which gives the wrong idea entirely.

You can listen to the programme here. It’s 9 minutes long, and you’ll need to register for a free BBC account.

Net tip: Message precedence

One of our recent trivia questions was:

If you are asked to relay a message containing the letter P after the message number what should you do?

That question introduces the topic of message Precedence, which is the second item in the message header.

The vast majority of messages we handle have a precedence of R, meaning “Routine”, but it’s good to know about the others, as they determine the order in which traffic gets handled. The following is adapted from ARRL:

All messages handled by Amateur Radio should contain precedences – that is, an evaluation of each message’s importance, made by the originating station. A precedence is an “order of handling.” When and as they appear on a net or any other kind of circuit, messages will be handled in this order:

EMERGENCY

Any message having life and death urgency to any person or group of persons, which is transmitted in the absence of regular commercial facilities. This includes official messages of welfare agencies during emergencies requesting supplies, materials or instructions vital to relief to stricken populace in emergency areas. During normal times, it will be very rare. On CW, RTTY, AMTOR and packet this designation will always be spelled out. When in doubt, do not use this designation.

P (Priority)

Use abbreviation P on CW, RTTY, AMTOR and packet. This classification is for important messages having a specific time limit, official messages not covered in the emergency category, press dispatches and emergency-related traffic not of the utmost urgency.

W (Welfare)

This classification, abbreviated as W on CW, RTTY, AMTOR and packet, refers to either an inquiry as to the health and welfare of an individual in the disaster area or an advisory from the disaster area that indicates all is well. Welfare traffic is handled only after all emergency and priority traffic is cleared.

R (Routine)

Most traffic in normal times will bear this designation. In disaster situations, traffic labeled Routine (R on CW, RTTY, AMTOR and packet) should be handled last, or not at all when circuits are busy with higher-precedence traffic.

So, there are several right answers to this trivia question, but I was expecting something along these lines:

A Priority message should be handled after any Emergency messages and before any Welfare our Routine messages.

Suggestions?

If you have suggestions on how to make the NZ Net better, or things you’d like to see covered in these updates, please contact ZL1NZ. You might even like to write something for the newsletter.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you soon on the NZ Net!

—

Neil Sanderson ZL1NZ, Net Manager
New Zealand Net (NZ NET)
3535.0 kHz at 9pm NZT Mon-Fri