Radio Message Accounting and Lifecycle of a Radiogram (Radio KD8TTE Episode 008)

[@tommcmichael8679]

So very helpful!! Thanks!

[@reidtillery2856]

Specific question: David Jones wants to let his sister, Elizabeth Jones, know he's okay after the hurricane. His neighbor Tom Smith is a GMRS licensee, call sign XXXX123, and a member of a local GMRS net. Tom takes the message from David, puts it into a Radiogram and passes it to George via GMRS radio. George, a GMRS licensee, ZZZZ345, and also a radio amateur, call sign, WW4WWW delivers the message into an NTS HF phone traffic net. How would the Radiogram be completed in this case? Is David the originator? Is Tom the originator? Whose call sign goes in the preamble? Thanks for any help.

[@KD8TTE]

Good question! The originator is the author of the message, the person whose name is in the signature portion. The station of origin is the amateur radio station that put the message into the amateur radiogram format for relay via amateur radio, and will get service messages back. The example that you give is really good because it highlights an important point: anyone can put the message in the format. The critical role of the station of origin is to get service messages back and also if there's a need to find a reply path back, that could be used. GMRS is a fine service and may also perform relay but a remote amateur station won't know the path back for service or routing queries. For the purpose of NTS or RRI, the system is bound to amateur radio and any gateways to other services will need to do formatting to and from other services. It's delivery or origination as far as NTS/RRI is concerned. This is an important and valuable service, gateways between services. Interoperability across services just wasn't something envisioned with the current systems using that format.