"We have two ears and one mouth and they are to be used in proportion."
- anonymous.

In the days where every ship of credibility carried a Morse code set, the radio operator was required to maintain radio silence on the international distress frequency of 500 KHz for a three minute interval, at 15 and 45 minutes of every hour. As radiotelephone came into being a 3 minute watch was maintained at 0 and 30 minutes. If the disaster your vessel encountered fit within the 30 minute schedule, your weak, plaintive CQD (later, SOS) had a good chance of being heard amidst all the commercial traffic and noise.

Today, satellite communications systems have forced these "antiquated" structures into retirement, but not entirely. A few years ago I enjoyed a tour of a huge container ship at Boston Harbor. After pleasantries with the Captain I asked for permission to meet his Radio Officer. "Our Engineer holds that title," he told me, "but in reality," with the Captain putting his hands on a piece of satellite gear, "this is our Radio Officer." Paying deference to the captain and the high tech gear, I then headed straight for the radio room - thankfully they still had one -- and was warmly greeted by a middle-aged man of professional bearing in full white uniform. There, in a large space, were three racks, each with a high powered HF transmitter. The wise officer revealed his best-kept secret to safety: "Should we be going down," he said, opening a small desk drawer, "I'm using this." A rather sturdy Morse hand key was revealed, and there began an understanding between us. "The satellites don't talk back," he told me. "This does."

Quiet Periods, Listening Watches and Amateur Radio

He knew about the quiet periods and listening watches of old and the stories of lives lost and saved. He also knew that the necessity of maintaining a strict listening watch has not been lost to time and technology. In fact, it's a greater necessity than we may have considered in our own Amateur Radio service. The very first Amateur Radio public service event I was responsible to organize included this concept. "Let's keep an ear on the radio, so we might be less tied up with getting your attention and have more time to pass actual traffic." Time and experience reveals that other problems such as the limitations of newer digital modes are mitigated by the maintenance of the strict listening watch.

My local club, the Police Amateur Radio Team (PART) of Westford, Massachusetts, operates a 2-meter analog repeater that is a fantastic performer. It's reliable. It has a wide reach. It is well maintained. Still, there are instances where the combination of interference, distance from the repeater site, and operator technique combine adversely.

The Boston Athletic Association Boston Marathon communications system offers excellent fodder for study. With almost 300 communications volunteers and a few dozen unique repeaters and other radio-communication systems all pressed to the limit within a very short time span, anything and everything that can go wrong generally does go wrong.

I have, as a volunteer (this is my 15th year), listened in pain to dreadfully long attempts at getting a simple message between two units, which generally begin with several unanswered calls, adding to the mess. In 2015, in a leadership capacity, I targeted the only variables within our immediate control: the operator on both ends of the circuit. Maintaining a strict listening watch became a mantra, and it will continue as long as we hold a radio in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

At a public service event many of us clip our radio to the belt. Body fading, the same physical phenomena that aids us in Fox Hunting, attenuates what's coming in and of course what goes out.

I now encourage my Net Control Operators (NCO) to request that field units "raise the radio over your head and try again" in the first instance where that unit is unreadable. This solves the input problem in almost all cases. With sufficient practice, it's hoped that awareness will spread, and the reminders be made obsolete.

The output problem - the ability to receive the repeater output in the field - is rarely that the (stronger) repeater transmission cannot be heard. It's simply that the operator is not focused, not listening for the call. The operator is chatting with friends, tired and glazed, or listening to other communications. One volunteer insisted that he bring along another radio so he might "listen in on public safety." "That's nice," I replied, "but it's not in our job description." I feared that, while lost to more exciting radio banter, my volunteer would lose awareness - of our situation and responsibility -- so necessary to maintain. I was right. He was often difficult to reach and generally ineffective. Hopefully it was a lesson learned.

Sure, our work can sometimes involve simply waiting for that one call, and this can be boring. But think of how interesting we can make our listening watch when we form a picture in our mind of what's happening at the event overall, and what has happened in the past, to grasp that we perform a life or death function. 100% focus on our duty and assignment is critical to our "client" event officials being able to secure the public's safety as best they can, at the rest stop, intersection, or Red Cross facility to which we are assigned.

Maintaining that strict listening watch:
- repeatedly overcomes the limitations inherent in our technical communications method,

- promotes situational awareness,

- improves our effectiveness to the teams we support, and in the end

- is a discipline that keeps us focused on the reason we're standing underneath that silly orange hat in the first place: to provide instant, reliable communications.

So, maintain that strict listening watch.
Your performance and overall satisfaction, and public safety at the next public service event will be all the better for it.

-- Mark Richards, K1MGY
[Richards serves as a member of the Boston Athletic Association Communications Committee, and is a frequent public service event volunteer and organizer. He is employed in the technical design and product development of hand-held environmental monitoring instrumentation].

Source:
www.arrl.org/ares-el?issue=2015-11-18