Tag: RadiogramPortal

Publicity and Outreach

Radiogram Portal messages and the Public Service Honor Roll

- by Jay

During the July Radiogrammer challenge we have seen a sharp uptick in available messages in the Radiogram portal. In the first 9 days alone over 90 messages were added to the National Traffic System (NTS) from the portal. With this increased number of available messages, some might wonder:

“How do I account for the messages I get off the portal with regards to my monthly Public Service Honor Roll (PSHR)?”

The answer is as follows: messages taken off the Radiogram Portal and added to the NTS by RF count as 1 Origin and  1 sent or in more unusual circumstances 1 delivered. This depends on how it is moved. One caveat, inputting radiogram messages into the portal via internet does not count towards a station’s PSHR.

Publicity and Outreach

Portal Text Fix

- by Jay

The following update was published by the Radiogram portal creator Jonathan, K1RFD:

The Portal has been updated so that any newlines in free-form text are now converted to spaces.

This aims to solve issues with multi-line text which is pasted into the text box, or if the submitter inserts newlines while typing a message.

Previously, newlines were being stripped, causing the last word of one line to be joined with the first word of the next line.
Publicity and Outreach

Radiogram Portal Challenge

- by Jay
Message from: Phil Temples, K9HI

The traffic handling community has been equipped with an exceptional tool known as the Radiogram Portal, written by Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, which allows third parties to deposit a message for origination and delivery via the National Traffic System. The Portal is supported by a cadre of registered traffic handlers (“radiogrammers”) who check the site daily and pick up any messages for origination. Even though we’re beginning to promote the use of the Portal to the general public, activity is slow on some days. We need more messages to “keep the system lubricated.” There is no reason why regular traffic handlers can’t take advantage of the portal’s capabilities and boost radiogram traffic while also having fun at the same time.

All traffic handlers (and non-traffic handlers) are invited to take the Portal Challenge. Log into the Portal each day and leave a message destined for a ham or non-ham, friend or family member. Those who qualify by depositing one message each day from July 1 through July 28 will receive a special certificate and acknowledgement in the August 2025 issue of The NTS Letter. This is a great way to demonstrate how the public can be served by the National Traffic System and amateur radio! To qualify, you must introduce at least one message onto the Portal each day for pickup and origination by a qualified radiogrammer. Remember, in this particular situation, you are not the station of origin but rather are acting as a “third-party” and therefore your message will not count as an “origination” or “sent” point in your Station Activity Report (SAR).
Updated Access & Delivery Methods

Radiogram portal (minor changes)

- by Jay
The following message was posted to the radiogrammers groups.io by Jonathan, K1RFD, the author of the Radiogram Portal with regards to two recent minor updates:

Text punctuation conversion: In the text, an exclamation mark is converted to EXCLAMATION, and an at-sign to ATSIGN.  As before, a slant bar is allowed verbatim, a pound sign becomes NR, and all other punctuation marks are converted to the letter X.  But if the text ends with a punctuation mark that would become X, it’s removed.

As a reminder existing standard replacements are still in effect, the question mark becomes QUERY and the period becomes the letter X.

HXE support: A new checkbox is shown on the Message Preview page, which says “When this message is delivered, ask the recipient to send a Radiogram back to me as a reply.” This is un-checked by default. If the submitter checks it, a Phone Number field appears to collect the submitter’s phone number. This causes HXE to be added to the handling instructions in the preamble, and the phone number to be appended to the signature.