I was talking to a blog reader last night, and the topic of running a club net came up. For whatever reason, I seem to be the default net control station for our club’s 2m net (which meets every Monday evening at 8 pm on 146.96 MHz). Over the last year or two, it’s become fairly successful. We get a good group of checkins, and have a pretty good roundtable discussion.
I have a routine that I follow:
- Call the net to order, identifying both the net and myself.
- Explain that this is a fun net, and encourage anyone listening to check in.
- Call for mobile station checkins, and then give mobiles a transmission.
- Call for fixed stations and then run through the list of checkins, giving each a transmission.
- Call for more checkins and give them each a transmission.
- Ask if there are any further comments for the net.
- Close the net and return the net to normal amateur use.
The most important thing is to have fun. While there is room for procedure, I try to keep the net upbeat and fun. I joke around with the operators who check in, as well as joke around about my own foibles. I ask them about what projects they’re working on and what fun things they’re doing outside of amateur radio even.
There seems to be very little on the net about running a club net. There is one web page at https://www.mide.io/2015/10/19/running-a-ham-radio-net.html. There’s even a script that the net controls can use.
Do you run a club net? If you do, please tell me what you do to encourage people to check in and how you make it an entertaining and useful experience for those who do.
net control says
There are two “fun” club nets around here, in addition to the usual Skywarn, ARES, HealthCare, and other nets.
One club’s is pretty slow, and is done in five minutes. NC (same every week) calls for checkins, and we’re done.
The other club got serious about assigning NC duties to different hams, and we spice it up with a question of the day — Mac or PC? Linux or Windows? Working on your upgrade? and so on. That net generates lots of comments, and goes for 30 or 40 minutes. When I’m net control I get an adult beverage, ad lib the preamble, and have some fun.
Levi, K6LCM says
Our nets on the K6TZ repeater in Santa Barbara are usually more discussion based. We do take roll call and that takes about 5 minutes to check in 5-15 stations. Net control keeps a list and asks for discussion topics at check-in. Then we launch into a discussion with folks dropping their callsign when they wish to add something. Periodically, net control will ask for any new check-ins. Usually net control makes an effort to check back in with the stations on the list to ask for comments and overall it seems to work well. You can listen to recordings of the nets (the Digital Comms and Technical Mentoring nets are the best examples of this format) at http://www.sbarc.org.
KD8AQT says
I participate in the ACAN weekly net on the 147.040 Harrisville, MI repeater. We use the same format as you it sounds like. There is almost always a topic or two to encourage comments. There are regular scanner listeners who participate by emailing the NCS, who is usually W8SZ. We do “two cups of coffee” and then ask for comments buy sell trade and thats it. I’ve heard only one piece of traffic moved.
We have also had message handling practice nets, though not many who regularly check in handle any traffic at all.
Rob W4ZNG says
I do a monthly turn at calling the weekly 2m ARES net on the W4SGL repeater in Biloxi MS. All four of the net controllers have slightly different methods, but the basic script goes something like this:
(1) call the net to order
(2) ask for any emergency or other traffic
(3) make announcements of upcoming ham events
(4) call for check-ins in four groups, with call sign suffixes beginning with a-g, h-m, n-t, u-z
(5) thank everyone for their check-ins & close out that part of the net
(6) continue with a directed net technical Q&A/troubleshooting session. I try to have a backup topic to throw out there to get things rolling, but I first ask for somebody on the net to come up with a topic before I resort to the backup. 3 out of 4 times somebody’ll have a question or topic, and 9 out of 10 times another net participant comes right back with an answer or solution.
The first 5 parts take no more than 10-20 minutes, and the tech session usually runs for about 45 minutes or so. We usually have 1 to 2 dozen check-ins, so breaking the calls down 4 ways by their call sign suffixes keeps the doubles down. I really like this way of checking in, as opposed to a roll call. It moves faster, and doesn’t have the downer factor of reading through a list where about 1 in 5 people check in. I keep and “announce score” on the emergency power vs. commercial power check-ins. Gimmicky, but it adds to the interest. The tech session is a lively and fun way of rounding out things, and it keeps the net’s focus on radio technology, which is always a good thing for the club and in the ham radio community.
Paul, AE4KR says
Rob, a roster can be very helpful in limiting doubles and the resulting need to repeat, but most nets I’ve heard don’t seem to make efficiency the priority. If you create a system which weeds out the no-shows after every session, the roster can be quite efficient.
I started the Salt Lake 10-Meter Net a few months ago, and keep attendance using a spreadsheet. If a station checks in once, they’re added to the roster and stay there until they miss four consecutive nets. Out of 89 stations which have checked in at least once, the roster lists between 24 and 30. We generally have over half the roster stations checking in.
After doing the net for nine months, I’m sensing that requiring two check-ins per month to be added to the roster would streamline things even more, but I want to keep a welcoming atmosphere, so I’ll probably tolerate the slight inefficiency.
Nets which put every club member on the roster as an incentive to pay dues, don’t update the roster regularly, or simply don’t think about their roster’s editing algorithm seem to end up with a bloated list. If the roster isn’t working efficiently, change something!
Pete M0PSX says
Interesting post – many thanks.
Here in the UK, our group runs a weekly net. It typically lasts around 2 hours, with between 15 and 20 people on average.
Format is largely as outlined above, and it’s pretty casual. We’ve added a few enhancements – the net is streamed online and we have a live chatroom running whilst the net’s on. This allows people out-of-area to listen and participate. The chatroom is handy for posting URLs and nattering whilst waiting for people’s turn to come around – with 20 people on, it can be 20-40 minutes before someone’s turn comes around, so online chat keeps people interested. We also promote the net on social media and publish a post-net report – See http://www.essexham.net for a summary of how we do it here in Essex – 40 miles East of London.
73 de Pete M0PSX
Dan KB6NU says
EssexHams certainly seems to be a great club. I like the idea of live-streaming the net. I should give this a try.
Kathy K7THY says
Glad to see this posting! I am looking around at how to make Net Control more entertaining. W7SKY.ORG is our Club site. I am the Webmaster for the Club and I’m always trying to find ways to keep people entertained. We have a pretty great site I must say. It’s NOT just all ham radio links. I also was thinking of doing a live streaming of the Club checkin’s. We already video record our meetings and have those posted online. So when you find a great method on how to liven up the Club Net… please pass it along. lol.