💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › hamradio › whatisnts.ham captured on 2023-01-29 at 08:12:02.
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WHATIS.NTS (6/89) HISTORY of NTS Since the dawn of radio the handling of messages accurately and speedily has been held in highest esteem. In the early days, The range of the average spark gap station varied from 5 miles to 10 miles. As better antenna systems, receivers, and higher power rotary spark gap transmitters evolved, distances of 400 miles and more could be achieved as early as 1914 by the better stations operating on 200 meters and down. Obviously, longer distance communications could not be achieved reliably without relays. The American Radio Relay League was founded by Hiram P. Maxim primarily as a long distance radio relay system. By the end of 1915, over 600 stations in almost every state and province had been appointed as Official Relay Stations whose operating standards were kept very high. The technical capability had been present for a long time before; but it is most definitely the organizational structure created by the ARRL that quickly increased the distance a message could travel from 50 Miles in early 1914 to reliable transcontinental messaages by February 1917. The commercial communications systems at that time were fragile and often made unusable during disasters. Amateurs even in their dawn proved their worth to those communities which found themselves helpless without emergency communications. Operation then was strictly by Morse code and suffered under the worst combinations of noise, poor receiver selectivity, frequency unstable transmitters and receivers, poor receiver sensitivity, etc. A message was handled with almost a feeling of sacred trust by dedicated and skilled operators. A message from coast to coast often had to be painstakenly relayed 8 times or more. To "botch" or delay such a message was not looked at very kindly by "the brethren". An operator was judged not so much for the amount of messages that he could handle nor the "sweetness" of his fist as much as how accurate and reliable of a relay he proved to be. It was a high priority to have an efficient continental system established not only for amateur radio communications but for public service and disaster communications. For accuracy and efficiency, a specific format was eventually determined to be the most effective. The standard NTS format in its present form is almost identical with that which also evolved in a parallel manner in the military and the commercial message services; which, by the way, were for the most part staffed by hams as well. The present day National Traffic System (NTS) evolved out of this eighty old public service and disaster communication tradition. The NTS is still sponsored by the American Radio Relay League and features an orderly method of reliably and responsibly moving messages across the continent on a daily basis as a public service through a system of voice and cw nets and now also packet radio forwarding systems. Packet radio forwarding, although made possible only as recently as late 1984 appears as a natural choice to continue this fine tradition, as it is proving both accurate, fast, and more and more reliable. NTS STRUCTURE The NTS structure, in order to ensure reliability, is based on an hierarchy of local, section, regional, and area nets. The section and/or local net managers are appointed by the Section traffic Manager or the Section Manager. The Region and Area net managers are appointed by the Area Staffs. A message originated at the local or section level is taken to region net by an assigned liaison station appointed by the section net manager. Likewise, traffic is taken to the area net by a liaison station appointed by the region net manager. There are three Area nets in North America; Pacific, Central, and Eastern. Traffic is transferred from Area to Area by members of the Transcontinental Corps (TCC) appointed by the TCC Director. Traffic then flows down from Area net, to region nets and then to section and sometimes local nets where it is delivered. Thus traffic is both originated and delivered at the section and/or local net level. The rest of the NTS is simply a relay system. Thus packet radio networks form a natural media to help facilitate the accurate and speedy handling of such messages. Because messages for the most part are still delivered in NTS section and local nets, the existing NTS format is important to maintain for reasons of interface. There are literally hundreds of section and local nets meeting daily across the continent on both voice and cw that deliver third party traffic as a public service and as a training for disaster communications. PACKET BBS MESSAGE FORWARDING In 1984 Hank Oredson, W0RLI, made avaialble to the amateur community a free software program that ran on the inexpensive Xerox 820 computer. Soon afterwards Hank added an automatic forwarding system whereby one mailbox could automatically forward to any other mailbox at any time that would be convenient thus allowing for automatic relays of bulletins, personal messages, and NTS messages. This system became implemented on a widespread basis nationwide by mid 1985 through a system of VHF/HG GateWay mailbox systems. Messages were entered on the VHF (usually 2 meter) ports and then forwarded automatically to a HF GateWay BBS for long distance relay. Traffic for closer destinations were relayed on 2 meters and later through vhf and uhf "backbone" systems. These relay systems are constantly being improved and longer distances are now being covered through coast to coast satellite links, more efficient network nodes, higher speed backbones, and a better organized national HF packet system. This system is expected to continue to increase in efficiency and reliability over the next few years. On a section level, STMs and Net Managers are appointing Packet Net managers to facillitate the interface between the section net and the linked packet BBSs system. Liaison stations are assigned to pick up the traffic at section BBSs nodes to be taken to the section net. Likewise traffic outgoing from the section net is often brought to a linked packet BBS for relay via packet. The packet system is especially valuable for missed schedules, overload traffic, high volume disaster welfare traffic, fair traffic, and relay to regions where favorable propagation factors do not coincide with available operation times. The eastern area staff has already appointed Region Net Packet Managers to help facillitate the traffic flow within and between their regions via packet BBSs.