3. Net Control Operator

3.1. Responsibilities

The Net Control Operator (NCO) runs the amateur radio part of the net. Any licensed operator can be the NCO; generally the first willing person on the air will start as the NCO; they can pass the responsibility off as other, perhaps more qualified, people come onto the net.

3.2. Initial Task

The initial task of the NCO is to collect ‘Modified Mercalli’ incident reports (see the Mike-Mike Reports chapter for more information about this system and how we use it). The normal expectation is that we will collect mike-mike reports for about 10 minutes.

The NCO should announce themselves on the radio (typically the W6LAH repeater, if it is operating; otherwise on the town’s simplex frequency).

QUESTION: should the NCO recruit an SMS monitor at this point to collect non-ham incident reports instead of waiting for an IC to be selected?

3.3. Decide whether we are going to activate

After 10 minutes the NCO will check the results. The standing rule is: if over 25% of the reports are MM6 or higher then we will start the activation process.

But the NCO has some discretion based on what they observe and the reports they receive. Areas that are hardest hit may be ‘silent’. Hearing nothing does not mean everything is OK.

Announce the results over the air.

3.4. Activating

If we are activating, the NCO’s responsibilities are to:

  • Run the net, coordinating transmissions among net participants
  • Keep a roster of who is on the net, to communicate to the IC and other folks who need to know.
  • coordinate the selection of the Incident Commander, based on the roster of checked in people
  • arrange for someone to communicate the current MM total counts to the county resource net (AA6BT)

After that the NCO will focus on running the net, and communicating tasks from the IC (and others) and facilitating communication until we can transition operations to the ARK and EOC.

Traffic the NCO should be prepared to receive and handle until operations pass to the ARK:

  • inquiries from town volunteers who are just joining the net
  • survey reports from Recon unit
  • incident reports received from field units for relay to emergency services (if possible)

3.5. Not activating

If under 25% of the reports we will not activate without further instructions from the town.

The NCO still should:

  • arrange for someone to communicate the current MM total counts to the county resource net (AA6BT)
  • arrange for someone to communicate with town staff (See the IC document for more details)
  • keep the net active for late MM reports, keep a roster of hams who have checked in, and inform the net of non-activation for the next hour