St. Louis Metro ARES^® has a message practice session every Wednesday immediately after the regular weekly 2 meter resources net, and on the same frequency. All amateur radio operators are welcome to listen in and practice writing down formal messages. Shortly before a message is read on the air, it will be posted on this Web site so you can check what you copied down (see below). One message will be read each week. They may be in either FEMA ICS-213 format or in ARRL Radiogram format.

FEMA ICS-213:
You can download either of the two ICS-213 forms (see below). It does not matter which one you choose. We will use the "To: (name and position)", "From: (name and position)", Subject:", "Date:", "Time:", and "Message:" blocks and ignore all the rest. The To/From blocks differ on the two ICS-213 forms, but all that matters is that you get the names and positions written down as they were read over the air. The ICS-213 form was originally designed to be hand-written and used with carbon copies. Obviouslly we cannot do that, which is why we will ignore the "Approved", "Signature", "Reply" and other remaining blocks.

ARRL Radiogram:
You can download whichever Radiogram form is most convenient for you (see below).

Please join us on this new net. Even if you are not registered with ARES^®, I think you will find this aspect of emergency communications interesting.

Gary Ross Hoffman, KB0H
Net Manager

• MESSAGES THAT HAVE BEEN READ ON THE AIR
  
  
• DOLORES' MESSAGE HANDLING TIPS

• Guidelines for using the ICS-213 form
• FEMA ICS-213 message form (Adobe Acrobat format)¹
• FEMA ICS-213 message form as used by St. Louis County EMA (Adobe Acrobat format)¹

• ARRL message handling guide (Adobe Acrobat format)¹
• ARRL Radiogram form (Adobe Acrobat format)¹
• ARRL Radiogram form (Excel Spreadsheet format)¹
• ARRL Radiogram modified for WORD format (Word format)¹ (written by Jim Yuen, WH6GS)