Meeting Time: 7:00-9:30 PM.
The next meeting of the Billerica Amateur Radio Society (BARS) is Wednesday, December 6, 2017.
Guest: Marcia Forde, KW1U.
Marcia is the ARRL Section Traffic Manager (STM) for the Eastern Massachusetts (EMA) section.
Topic: Message Handling and the National Traffic System (NTS).
Marcia, KW1U, is the Section Traffic Manager for both the Eastern and Western Massachusetts ARRL sections. She is a highly respected expert on the intricacies involved in efficiently handling amateur radio message traffic and the infrastructure that exists to facilitate this important activity.
Among the topics she will discuss are:
– Message relay and the ARRL
– The National Traffic System: its evolution
– The Radiogram
– Nets: Sending and receiving messages
– Field Day
– The NTS today and beyond
The “NTS Manual” is a comprehensive guide to the National Traffic System available here.
Marcia has contributed to the creation of the “Methods and Practices Guidelines” (MPG), a very extensive guide to best practices in message handling and net operation, based on the experiences over the years of a group of long time message traffic handlers. This publication some might call our “Bible” and is used in conjunction with the NTS Manual. It is well indexed by subject and the Table of Contents can be found here.
Location:
Our meeting location in Chelmsford is at:
Chelmsford Bible Church
128 Gorham St. (Route 3A)
East Chelmsford, MA 01824
Please park in back and enter by the rear door. A map is on the sidebar.
The Billerica ARS encourages members to get on the air! (GOTA). There are many exciting operating events over the coming cold months to enjoy. Let us know what your interested in.
Bring a friend (or aspiring ham) and join us!
Note: The weekly BARS Wednesday night net will not meet on this evening because of the club meeting. Members are encouraged to get on Billerica (147.12) on their way to/from the meeting instead.
