None of the situations given in this question are reasons for the FCC rules to not apply. RACES, FEMA and ARES operations are all governed by the FCC rules.

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An amateur radio net is an "on-the-air" gathering of amateur radio operators. Most nets meet on a regular schedule and specific frequency, and are organized for a particular purpose, such as relaying messages, discussing a common topic of interest, sharing information during severe weather (for example, during a SkyWarn activation), during emergencies, or simply as a regular gathering of friends for conversation.

A formal, or directed, net has a single Net Control Station (NCS) that manages its operation for a given session. The NCS operator calls the net to order at its designated start time, periodically calls for participants to join, listens for them to answer (or check in), keeps track of the roster of stations for that particular net session, and generally orchestrates the operation of the net.

A different station might be the designated Net Control Station for each net session. The overall operation and scheduling of NCS assignments and net sessions is managed by the net manager. While Net Control Station operators will ask participants who check in for specific identifying information (such as callsign, name, and location) in order to create the net roster, Net Control Stations are not responsible for verifying the status of each participant's amateur radio license.

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Phone means voice. The phonetic alphabet is generally understood by operators in all countries, so using it enhances communication in identifying your station.

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RACES stands for "Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services." It was created by FEMA and the FCC, requires an Amateur Radio license for membership, and requires certification via a civil defense agency.

[Exam Tip] - Remember that the answer contains the words "civil" and "emergencies," which are the 'C' and 'E' in "RACES."

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Traffic refers to formal messages exchanged by net stations.

An amateur radio net or ham net is an on-the-air gathering of amateur radio operators. But there are different types of nets with different levels of formality and different purposes.

Traffic nets operate primarily to relay formal written messages.

(More info on Wikipedia)

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According to the American Radio Relay League (ARRL),

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment, with their local ARES leadership, for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes.

By this statement, it's clear that ARES is not meant strictly for members of the military. Furthermore, because ARES assumes a membership of licensed amateurs, it is not intended for those interested in obtaining licenses.

Finally, ARES can indeed be a training program to help promote readiness certifications, but the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) certifies its own membership (FCC Part 97 section 407.)

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Remember that the "net control station" controls (directs) the conversation on a net. They will ask for check-ins, ask if there is any station with traffic, and guide the conversation based on the purpose of the net. A net may be social, or it may be activated during emergencies to provide supplemental communications between stations in the field and, say an EMA station, for example. Given this, it makes sense that you should listen to the control station and follow their directions.

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A station passing a message in an emergency has an expectation that it will be delivered, not weighed to see if it merits delivery or relay. So you're expected to deliver it.

You might think you know enough to clarify, abbreviate or otherwise change a message, but it's so risky that you should just not do it - pass the message exactly as received.

Emergency messages should always specify an originating party and the party to whom the message should be delivered. The choice about communicating messages to the news media for broadcast is generally not a good idea, unless that's the destination that was specified.

So the best answer is to pass the message exactly as received.

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This is a bit of a trick question; emergency plans will never take into account transmitting out of band, since if you're planning it you can always plan to not need to transmit out of band.

The rule is this: Always do whatever it takes to keep people safe. If someone is going to die unless you transmit on a police (or other) frequency, transmit first and ask forgiveness later.

Just make sure that whatever action you're taking isn't interfering with something and causing more danger than you are trying to protect against!

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The American Radio Relay League was originally created in order to relay messages across long distances. In order to do so safely and efficiently, the Amateur Radio Traffic Handling system was created. The first part of any message sent across this system is called the preamble.

The preamble contains information such as who the message is from, who the message is to, and information about the content of the message (specifically the number of words). This information is used to facilitate correctly routing the message through the Amateur Radio Traffic Handling System without losing any part of the message or sending it to the wrong destination.

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The best practice is to use plain English and not jargon. But in the case of formal message traffic, the word, "check" means the count of words in the body (text portion) of the message.

This is a way to make sure you didn't add or drop a word from the message. This is related to the best practice of passing the message exactly as it was received.

Let’s use this as an example message we want to send:

Great seeing you yesterday. Hope to get together again soon. 73

In a radiogram, periods are written as either the letter X (“initial x-ray”), or the word XRAY. Either way, this indicates an end of a sentence. Similarly, if your message was, “How are you?” the question mark would be written as QUERY to indicate a question.

Using this method, we will write the text of the message like this:

GREAT SEEING YOU YESTERDAY X

HOPE TO GET TOGETHER AGAIN

SOON 73

Notice how we did not place X between SOON and 73? When wishing someone 73 at the end of a message, we generally do not include an X as it’s automatically implied. The only exception would be to include it for clarity. For example, if the end of your message was “ON AUGUST 10 73” it could be confusing this way, so we would instead say “ON AUGUST 10 X 73” to help better separate the date from wishing someone 73.

Items like X and QUERY count as a word when filling in the check, so counting what we have above, there are 12 words, and we would write 12 in the check.

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