An early project of the National Traffic System (NTS) 2.0 team was to create a “snapshot” of then-current system performance by originating test traffic to more than 150 recipients throughout the entire United States.

Key takeaways from that initial exercise included:

System-wide, there is plenty of room for improvement in how quickly and how accurately messages get from origin to destination.
To improve the quality of our post-exercise summaries, we need tools that make it easy for all who are involved in any aspect of a traffic exercise to report, collect, and analyze results.

In response to the first bullet above, we are developing new training materials – as well as pursuing other vehicles for raising awareness of the need to improve our system performance. (See, for instance, “Do Your PART” by W2RU in the May NTS Letter.)

To improve the value of the test exercises themselves, we need new tools to simplify the reporting process for all participants and to more quickly generate output summaries of value to net managers, STMs, HQ, and all other stakeholders, including all participants. To that end, we presently have under development a web-based Performance Analysis Tool (PAT) to fill the current void. And as soon as we can, we’ll be announcing a small exercise – perhaps as early as this fall — specifically intended to test the new tool.

Radio Relay Intl. - https://radiorelay.org/