I ran out of Message forms and so I started to record QTC in an exercise book. Not a good idea! I missed the fact that some messages I had not passed on, and also I gave 2 messages the same originating NR. Having printed off new forms today and transcribed all those messages across, immediately showed me those problems.
Now, how to organize your message forms for plain sailing? Ideally with large clips such as clipboard clips:
- Have one pile for received QTC that are for you or have already been passed on. Put newest QTC on top of this pile.
- Have another pile for sent QTC, put latest sent at the back of this pile (optional) but keep them in your MSG NR order.
- Have another pile of blank Forms for outgoing, this could in fact be on the top of your sent pile so it is one pile if you like.
- And another pile of blank Forms for incoming though you could use the same pile as above and remove when filled out and file either for outgoing QSP (see below) or in the above mentioned Receive QTC pile.
And at your operating position, facing you, have another pile, which is sorted in order of callsign for which the QTC: in the top left of each MSG Form put the callsign(s) that you need to send these to. It is THESE callsigns that you sort the order of this pile, and put this pile in order of callsigns. E.g. 2MZ on top, 4CU behind, 4QC behind, 5EEE behind, 6RR behind, ZL1 behind, etc. This way you can easily create or send your Traffic List on the fly, and when you make contact on the net, you can find who you have traffic for, how many, and send them as soon as possible. NB: if you have B messages, put them behind the R messages for each station, and if you have P messages put them on the TOP of the pile irrespective of callsign, as those you need to be moving immediately!
Finally, do not forget that every QTC you receive and send, you must record in the boxes at the bottom, the callsign you sent to or received from, the date, time, and also ideally add the frequency and mode — you can omit these if you put the exact time down and keep a log book of your transmissions, because this information could be looked up in that log book if required.
Keeping things organized in this manner makes it a breeze when you have to create an SAR report after the end of the month, also to find out what serial number is next (or you can number those blank outgoing forms, but if so, not now at the end of the year as your numbers will start from 1 again at the beginning of the new year).
At the end of the year, or more often (monthly) if you handle a lot of messages, you can file all these received and sent QTC and start your clip board again empty in the new year (or for busy traffic stations, start of the new month).
