National Traffic System (NTS)
Training

The National Traffic System (NTS) is a structure designed to move traffic and train amateurs to handle traffic and participate in directed nets. The system consists of the amateurs, the local, regional and area networks, and the digital links which move traffic from its origin to destination.

According to the ARRL's Public Service Communications Manual, the NTS has four levels of nets, sequentially activated, to allow traffic to flow smoothly. The manual likens the NTS to an airplane trip, where a traveler boards a local airline destined for a major airport, there boarding a continental airliner to the next major airport, then again taking a local airline to the final destination.

The four levels of nets allow traffic to be originated at a local level, be passed to a section level net, then on to a regional net, across area boundaries, and back down to a local net via another regional and section level net. This assumes that traffic is bound for another part of the country. Traffic within a localized area should never rise up to a level higher than necessary to complete its journey.

Here in Colorado there are at least three NTS traffic nets on VHF: the Northern Colorado Traffic Net, the Central Colorado Traffic Net and the Southern Colorado Traffic Net. These nets usually take place daily on a local or wide coverage repeater, but may have an alternate repeater or simplex frequency designated as backup. There are also other HF nets operating in the area (e.g., the Columbine Net) which funnel traffic to and from the local nets.

Above the local nets, the section, region and area nets function to pass traffic destined outside the local area. Local nets usually have a liaison to a region net, where traffic is passed to other sections in the region, or to another region via the area nets.

Traffic can be passed by voice or by digital means. In Colorado during our annual Colorado Traffic Jam exercise, we've found that traffic passed by voice has a higher probablility of arriving at its destination than traffic passed via digital means (usually packet BBS forwarding).

For a more detailed understanding of the National Traffic System, you should pick up the ARRL's Public Service Communications Manual (Publication Number FSD-235, revised Feb 1996) at your nearest amateur radio dealer, or contact the ARRL directly. The ARRL has a web page where you can get even more information. In Colorado contact Mike Stansberry, KØTER, the Section Traffic Manager, for more information specific to Colorado nets.

Thanks to Jeff Ryan, NØWPA, for providing the five-part NTS training below. The training below is designed to provide information on how to create traffic, format traffic, send traffic and receive traffic using the standard message format of the NTS. The five parts below were designed to be read during a regular traffic net, with one part being read per net, for five nets.