HI folks,

SHe's right, don't worry about the form, just braille it down.

SInce there's a lot of new no-code blood that's never handled written
traffic, let's discuss what it is, and more importantly why it's a
necessary skill for emergency and disaster communicators.

WHen handling disaster communications you'e going to need to take down
messages verbatim as sent.  Traffic handling refines this skill so it
isn't new to you.

Oldtimer brass pounders believe they have the superior mode for
handling traffic, and in many ways they do.  nO ambiguities can creep
in as they can with phone traffic handling, as one copies what's sent.
aS soon as the cw traffic handler sends nr and a number the station
copies what he hears.  Oversimplifying I know, but we'll move on for
now.

LEt's look at these ambiguities that can creep in on phone.  was that
a five or a nine in that address?  HOw do you spell JOhnson?  OR was
that Johnston?

Learning to send traffic so as ti make copying easier on phone is also
an acquired skill which gets better through practice.

I don't have a perkins brailler.  I use a slate and stylus and back
myself up with a tape recorder connected to the hf rig when handling
traffic.  IF my computer is booted up at the time i copy directly into
a text file.  IF copying via slate and stylus, I use grade one
braille.  I tried grade three, but decided that ambiguities could
creep in, so I went back to actually a form of grade 0, numbers are
nemeth code,no letter signs or number signs.

I'll switch to grade two for words sometimes, but usually before
traffic is relayed if it must be I'll recopy it on the computer for
archival and zip a braille copy off on the embosser for reading
on-air.

THere are some blind folks I know that are regular traffic handlers
who are not braille conversatnt, but it's a lot of work, more than I'd
care to go through.  ONe fellow I know copies traffic via tape
recorder, listens to the tape on headphones while dictating it to
another tape recorder so he has clean copy to read on the air.  THen
he listens through an earphone while he sends the traffic.

NOtetaker users probably use a similar technique, listening to their
notetaker's pseech output while sending traffic on the air.  AS for
this op, I prefer braille.  I weouldn't want to do it without braille.

SOme other tricks i use for copying traffic:

I never bother to write down the precedence unless it is other than
routine.  OTherwise punching out that r just takes time.  For the
handling instructions I never braille the hx part, just the actuall
handling instruction.  THe rest of the preamble must be taken down
verbatim, but it allows me some space so I can keep up.

HOpe that's helpful to some of you.

IN other words, you don't need the form as much to use for copying
traffic as you need to understand it so all of the parts of the
message are taken down properly and relayed properly.

73 de nf5b





Richard Webb

Electric Spider Productions

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

--- Benjamin Franklin November 1755