On The Technical Side
Reporter: Gary Tangrady - AAR6BL EEI REPORTS (PART 2) - THE HOW TO Let’s talk about what is meant by timely and accurate information and in
doing so we will cover the details of transmitting the information in the voice mode. 1. TIMELY INFORMATION - information has to be timely. We could have
information that a road is open at a particular time. If we wait several hours for whatever reason to send that report,
or it is several hours before our client receives the information, things could have changed. Other things could have
happened upstream in the meantime that we were not aware of and by the time we send our report the water could have risen
and already washed out the bridge. However, in the absence of any new information, it is imperative that we include the
date and time of the information when we received it. This is done by including the date and time as a DTG (Date and Time
Group) in the BODY of the message. There is one specific item in an EEI Report where the date and time of the information
you are reporting is included. For your practice I will let you find this for yourself but I will give you a hint, you
can find it in the MARS National Op-Plan 4-02. You do have this document don’t you? Back in the flood of 2002 I lived in Bandera. We were shut off from
downtown Bandera and actually about 10 miles south of town surrounded by water from several low water crossings (For the
life of me, I do not know why they call it a low water crossing, water looks pretty high to me!) and the Medina River
ran behind our subdivision. We already had houses that were under water up to their eaves along the rivers edge. In
fact the water was just across the narrow street from our Operations Center in the fire station constantly reminding us
of just how high the river already was. The Central Dispatch Office in downtown Bandera who were upstream from us called
us on the radio at one point and said to expect the water to be rising about 5 feet in the next hour. IT DID! In
fact we even had to move our Operations Center to a new location. We were sure glad for some timely information that
day! Now do not confuse this information with a DTG in the preamble (that is
to say the header of the message). The DTG in the preamble is the date and time that you generate or format the message.
This would not necessarily be the same date and time that you received the information. The DTG that you develop for the
preamble is used for the filing of the message in the event you have to go back to your files (You do keep files don‘t
you?) and reference the original information. If you are transmitting the DTG of the message in voice, that is the DTG
which follows the serial number of the message, and it were 0630 UTC on the 9th of July in the year 2007 you would say: “ROUTINE Time Zero Niner Zero Six Three Zero Zulu July Two Zero Zero
Seven (Written out it appears as R 090630Z Jul 2007)
Note: Use ROUTINE for a MARS EXERCISE message and PRIORITY for an ACTUAL
INCIDENT message However, when you reference the DTG of the incident/information in the
BODY of the message it is treated as a mixed group. Mixed groups are preceded with the proword “I SPELL,” therefore you
would transmit it as follows: “I SPELL FIGURES ZERO NINER ZERO SIX THREE ZERO ZULU JULY FIGURES TWO ZERO
ZERO SEVEN” 2. ACCURATE INFORMATION - here the best course of action is to keep the
report brief and avoid excess verbiage but not at the expense of actionable information. Just what to include is a
decision you have to make. If you include too little your customer may be coming back unnecessarily asking for
verification. On the other hand if you get too wordy and include too much information you could confuse your customer
as well. If you are writing the Great American Novel it may be okay to ramble on
but when writing EEI and subsequent reports for transmission in voice keeping it short is the best course of action.
Besides, it will make your transmissions shorter and easier to transmit and better received at the other end. Possibly the best medicine is to read the message back to yourself while
asking yourself the question, “If I were reading this for the first time would I understand what it is saying?” I do this
constantly when writing for publication, it has become a habit for me. Then I look for ways to shorten what I have to say
and still keep the main point or meaning of the information intact. Various ways have been suggested, you can use whatever
works best for you. You may have heard, cut out every other word or every third word. That can work but I suggest you
work out your own style and stick with it so that it becomes a habit with you as well. Before I close part 2 of this article I was asked to mention something
which most of us would probably understand. Then again, if that does not include you then take heed. “DON’T tune your
radio during an active net. The only time you are authorized to tune is at the end of the Net Opening during the 50
second clear period. Don’t be a LID!” If you have any questions or would like to discuss these articles with me
please feel free to contact me. And if there is anything you would like to see in this Zone 1 Newsletter by all means
drop me a line. This is your newsletter! I can best be reached at AAR6BL@aol.com. Thank you for listening,
until next time……GaryT