Purpose
The Pinellas ACS training net will be used to familiarize ARES®/ACS participants with net procedures, message formats, phonetics, use of prowords, and other basic skills. The training segment of the net will be narrowly focused on a small set of skills and will be designed to require less than an 30 minutes to complete. This segment of the net will also be used to provide members with detailed information about upcoming drills and exercises.
The NCS will announce the net using the NCS script located on the ACS website. The net is divided into the seven segments listed below.
- Call for Priority Traffic
- Call for General Check-ins
- Bulletins
- Staff Reports
- Traffic and Announcements
- Training
- Final Announcements and net shutdown
Schedule
The Pinellas ACS Training Net will take place once per week at 1930 hours on Tuesday evenings.
Resources
The Pinellas ACS training net is a directed net that will make use of the W4ACS VHF/UHF repeater system. This is a linked repeater system. Operational frequencies and tones for the net are listed below.

Activity
2021 Weekly Training Material.
2022 Weekly Training Material.
The training material associated with each 2023 weekly training net will be posted below following the completion of the net.
Date
Description
Training Info
18 April 2023
Prowords and Fill Requests: An introduction to Introductory words, operational words, punctuation, and fill requests used when handling formal verbal message traffic.
14 March 2023
Event Specific Operations: Qn overview of the severe weather events that could cause ACS to activate, the potential impacts to critical infrastructure we need to plan for, the communication networks that could be activated, and the ACS assets required during a deployment.
7 March 2023
Net Check-in Procedures: An overview of the recommended procedures to be used when checking into a Pinellas ACS net.
28 February 2023
Personal Training Activities: An overview of recommended FEMA Individual Study (IS) and ARRL classes.
21 February 2023
Message Content, Security, and Precedence: An overview of message precedence and information that should not be passed via Amateur radio.
14 February 2023
Management of Communication Resources – Part II: Introduction to the ICS 205 Incident Radio Communications Plan.
7 February 2023
Management of Communication Resources – Part I: Introduction to the ICS 217A Communications Availability Worksheet.
31 January 2023
Communications Plan: Overview of the radio nets that PinCo ACS could used during an activation event.
24 January 2023
PinCo ACS Groups.io: Announcement and overview of the new PinCoACS Groups.io website.
17 January 2023
ICS201 – Incident Briefing Form: Detailed description of the Incident Briefing Form, ICS201..
10 January 2023
No Training held during the week of 10 January 2023.
03 January 2023
No Training held during the week of 03 January 2023.