Lesson Overview
The earlier lessons gave you the operator and the net, the prowords and phonetics of voice procedure, and the discipline of a controlled net. Those skills move words cleanly through the air. This lesson is about the words themselves: what you actually say, in what order, and how you make sure the right thing was understood and written down. A clear voice carrying a muddled message is worth no more than a muddled voice, and a message correctly passed but never logged may as well not have been passed at all.
There is a habit at the heart of this lesson, and it is the one most often skipped under pressure: think before you key. The radio rewards the operator who composes the message before pressing the button, and punishes the one who keys first and works out what to say while the net waits. Most of what follows, the standard reports, the date-time group, the readback of numbers, the log, exists to make a message short, complete, unambiguous, and recoverable. These are formats, and a format is a kind of memory: it tells you what to include so that nothing important is forgotten, and it tells the receiving station what to expect so that the message is understood the first time.
This is the knowledge layer. Knowing the SITREP format is not the same as being able to compose one calmly while a situation develops around you, and that operating skill is practised and signed off in person and on airsoft milsim exercises, where reports are sent for real over the set. Remember throughout that actual transmission is made only by licensed members or on licence-free or low-power sets; what this lesson teaches you to compose, you may practise off-air and on the exercises the course requires. By the end you will be able to compose a message before keying, send the standard RKA reports (SITREP, CONTACT, the SALUTE sighting report, and a 9-line casualty report) to a recognised format, write and read a date-time group in Zulu time and explain why one time standard matters, keep a signals log and explain why every station keeps one, and hand a written message to be sent and read back numbers and grids accurately.
Key Terms
- Message: any piece of information passed over the net, from a one-line acknowledgement to a long formatted report; this lesson is chiefly about the formatted kind.
- Report: a message in a fixed format, sent in a known order so that it is complete and quickly understood; the standard reports below are the ones an RKA operator must know.
- SITREP (situation report): a routine or requested report on the sending station's situation: where it is, what it is doing, its state, and anything of note.
- CONTACT report: a short, urgent first report that something significant has happened or been encountered, sent at once and followed later by fuller detail.
- SALUTE: the headings of a sighting report, Size, Activity, Location, Unit or Uniform, Time, and Equipment; a way to report what you have observed completely and in order. (SALTR is a shorter cousin.)
- Casualty report (9-line): a formatted report requesting help for a casualty, sent in a fixed set of lines so that the receiving station learns everything needed to respond.
- Date-time group (DTG): a compact way to write an exact date and time with its time zone, such as 121530Z JUN 26, read as a single group.
- Zulu time (Z): Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the single common time standard the whole force works to, regardless of local clocks; its zone letter is Z, spoken "Zulu".
- Signals log (radio log): the running written record every station keeps of the traffic it sends and receives: time, stations, and the gist of each message.
- Readback: reading a received detail, especially numbers and grid references, back to the sender so both stations confirm it was taken down correctly.
Think before you key
The single most useful habit on a radio is to compose the message before you transmit it. The reasons are practical. A radio net is shared: while you are on it, working out aloud what you meant to say, no one else can use it, and your hesitation invites someone to break in over you. A half-formed message is also a long message, full of false starts and corrections, and a long message is more easily lost to noise, forgotten, or mis-taken than a short one. The operator who pauses for two seconds to settle the message, then sends it cleanly, is faster overall than the one who keys at once and gropes for the words on air.
For anything longer than a brief acknowledgement, compose on paper. Write the message out, or at least its key points, before you call. This costs seconds and saves far more: the written message will be in a sensible order, it will contain the numbers and names you might otherwise have fumbled for, and it gives you something to read from steadily rather than recall under pressure. When the message belongs to a known format, the format does half the composing for you. You are not inventing what to say; you are filling in the SALUTE headings, or the SITREP lines, in order. This is why the reports exist and why they are worth learning by heart: under stress, a remembered format keeps you from leaving out the very thing the receiving station most needs.
There is an order of work, then, before any formatted message. First, decide who it is for and what they must be able to do on receiving it. Second, choose the right format. Third, gather the detail and write it into the format, getting the numbers and grids exactly right. Fourth, check it: is it complete, is anything ambiguous, is it as short as it can be without losing meaning? Only then do you call, pass the message, and obtain a readback of the critical parts. The discipline is to do the thinking off the key and keep the key for the sending.
The standard reports
A report is a message in a fixed format. The whole point of a format is that both stations know it: the sender is reminded what to include, and the receiver knows what is coming and can write it straight onto a prepared form. The RKA operator must know a small set of these cold. The course teaches the formats and the habit; the unit will hold the exact card versions in use, and you fill them in, you do not redesign them.
The SITREP answers a simple question: what is your situation? It is sent routinely at set times, or whenever asked for by the net control station, or whenever something changes that the higher station needs to know. A workable SITREP covers, in order, your location, what you are doing now, the state of your section (numbers, condition, any casualties, ammunition or stores if relevant), and anything else of note, ending with your intention, what you mean to do next. Kept to that order, it is complete and quick. A SITREP is a discipline against two opposite faults: the station that says nothing for an hour and leaves higher blind, and the station that floods the net with chatter. The right rhythm is a short, complete SITREP when one is due or when the picture changes, and silence otherwise.
The CONTACT report is the urgent first word that something significant has happened: you have encountered something, been challenged, found what you were sent to find, or met an incident. Its purpose is speed, not completeness. You get the bare fact onto the net at once so that the rest of the force knows, then you follow with fuller detail when you can. A contact report is therefore short by design: who you are, that you have a contact, the briefest sense of what and where, and then either more to follow or a request for what you need. The fuller, formatted detail, often a SALUTE, comes after, once the immediate moment allows. Sending a perfect, complete report two minutes late is worse than sending the bare contact at once and the detail shortly after.
The SALUTE sighting report is how you report something you have observed, completely and in a fixed order, so nothing is left out. The headings are Size, Activity, Location, Unit or Uniform, Time, and Equipment. You report how many, what they are doing, where exactly (a grid reference), who or what they appear to be and how they are dressed or marked, the time you saw them (as a date-time group), and what equipment they have. Sent in that order, a sighting becomes usable information rather than a vague impression. A shorter cousin, SALTR, drops some headings for speed, but learn the full SALUTE: it is the disciplined habit of describing what is there in a way another person can act on. In a humanitarian or home-defence setting the same format reports a hazard, a blocked route, a gathering, or any feature of note, neutral and exact.
The casualty report asks for help for an injured person and must carry everything the responder needs, so it is sent as a fixed set of numbered lines, a 9-line. The lines, in order, are: the location to send help to (a grid); the calling station and a means to call back; the priority or urgency; any special equipment needed; the number of casualties by how they must be moved; whether the site is secure and safe to approach; how the site will be marked; the casualties' nationality or status; and the terrain or any hazard at the site. Sending these in a fixed order means the responder can write each line as it arrives and will not have to ask again for the one thing that was missed. Compose it on paper if you possibly can, get the grid right, and read the grid back.
THE STANDARD REPORTS AT A GLANCE
SITREP (situation) | CONTACT (first word, fast)
--------------------------+-----------------------------
L Location | THIS IS <callsign>
A Activity (doing now) | CONTACT
S State (nos/cas/ammo) | <what, briefly> at <where>
I Intention (next) | MORE TO FOLLOW (or request)
+ anything of note | ...full SALUTE sent after
SALUTE (sighting) | 9-LINE CASUALTY (request help)
--------------------------+-----------------------------
S Size - how many | 1 Location (grid) for pickup
A Activity- doing what | 2 Callsign + callback means
L Location- grid | 3 Priority / urgency
U Unit/Uniform - who | 4 Special equipment needed
T Time - DTG seen | 5 Casualties by how moved
E Equipment - what kit | 6 Site secure? safe approach?
| 7 How site is marked
(SALTR = shorter form) | 8 Nationality / status
| 9 Terrain / hazards at site
The date-time group and one time standard
Two stations cannot work together unless they agree what time it is. This sounds obvious until you imagine a force whose members keep their own clocks, some fast, some slow, some on a different local time, and try to record when a thing happened or to act together at a set moment. The fix is a single agreed time standard. That standard is Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, which in military use carries the zone letter Z and is spoken "Zulu". Local clocks may say whatever they say; the net works in Zulu, and a time written with a Z is unambiguous to everyone, everywhere.
Military time is written in the 24-hour clock, so there is no morning-or-afternoon doubt: 0830 is the morning, 2030 is the evening, midnight is 0000. To this is added the date and the zone, giving the date-time group, the DTG. The form is two digits for the day, four for the time, the zone letter, then the month and year. So 121530Z JUN 26 reads as the twelfth of the month, at 1530 (half past three in the afternoon) Zulu, in June 2026. Read as a single group, it pins an event to an exact instant that means the same thing to every station that records it. When you read a DTG aloud you say the digits one by one, as numbers, and name the zone: "one two one five three zero Zulu, June two six".
Why insist on this rather than "about half three"? Because reports, logs, and orders are stitched together across stations and across time, and the only thread that holds them is an exact, shared time. A sighting reported at 121530Z and a movement ordered for 121600Z can be reasoned about together because both are in the same standard; "this afternoon" and "a bit later" cannot. When the Army sets a time for an action, a SITREP, or a rendezvous, it sets it in Zulu so that no one is caught out by a local clock or a careless conversion. Learn to think in the 24-hour clock and in Zulu, and learn to write and read a DTG without hesitation; it is the timestamp on everything you report.
READING A DATE-TIME GROUP: 1 2 1 5 3 0 Z JUN 26
1 2 day of the month .......... the 12th
1 5 3 0 time, 24-hour clock ....... 15:30 (half past three pm)
Z time zone letter .......... Zulu = UTC (the common standard)
JUN 26 month and year ............ June 2026
Spoken: "one two one five three zero Zulu, June two six"
24-HOUR CLOCK, a few anchors:
0000 midnight 0600 six am 1200 noon
1800 six pm 2030 half past eight pm 2359 a minute to midnight
Why ONE standard (Zulu/UTC):
- every station records the SAME instant, whatever the local clock
- reports, logs and orders can be lined up in true order
- a set time (rendezvous, SITREP, action) is the same for everyone
The signals log
Every station on a net keeps a log. The log is the running written record of the traffic the station handles: each message sent and received, with the time, the stations involved, and the gist of what passed. It is kept as the traffic happens, line by line, not written up afterwards from memory, because the whole value of a log is that it is contemporaneous and therefore trustworthy. A net with disciplined logs has a memory; a net without them has only what its operators happen to recall, which fades and disagrees.
The reasons to keep a log add up quickly. It lets a station recover a message it missed or garbled, from the receiving station's record of what was sent. It lets the net control station see the whole picture, who reported what and when. It hands over cleanly: when one operator relieves another, the incoming operator reads the log and knows at once where things stand. It settles disputes about what was said and when, with a timed record rather than two memories. And after an exercise or an incident it is the timeline from which the force learns. For all these reasons a station logs even its own outgoing and routine traffic, not only the dramatic moments.
A log entry is short. It carries the time (in the force's time standard, so a DTG or at least the Zulu time), the call signs of the stations, whether the message was sent or received (often shown as "in" or "out"), and a brief gist, enough to recall the message, not a full transcript. Numbers and grids that matter are written in full, because the log is exactly where you go to recover them. Keep the writing legible and the times honest; a log is only as good as its discipline. On the exercises this course requires, you will keep a log as you operate, and it will be read.
A SIGNALS LOG (the running record every station keeps)
STATION: 2-1 (section signaller) SHEET: 03
---------------------------------------------------------------
TIME (Z) | STN | I/O | GIST OF MESSAGE
---------+------+-----+------------------------------------------
121502Z | 2 | IN | NCS radio check - read L&C, ROGER
121515Z | 2-1 | OUT | SITREP: at GR 123 456, holding, all ok
121531Z | 2-1 | OUT | SALUTE: 3 pers, on foot, GR 140 470,
| | | unident hi-vis, seen 121530Z, no kit
121533Z | 2 | IN | ROGER your SALUTE, observe & report, WAIT
121548Z | 2-3 | IN | reports route GR 150 462 BLOCKED, tree down
121602Z | 2-1 | OUT | RELAY 2-3 block to NCS - acknowledged
---------------------------------------------------------------
I/O = In (received) / Out (sent). Time in Zulu.
Gist = enough to recall it; numbers/grids written in FULL.
Accuracy: numbers, grids, and the written message
A report is only as good as the detail it carries, and the detail most easily lost is the kind that matters most: numbers, grid references, frequencies, times. There is no recovering from a wrong grid in a casualty report or a transposed digit in a frequency, so the operator's accuracy on detail is not a nicety but the core of the job. Two habits carry most of the weight: speak numbers the disciplined way, and read critical detail back.
Speak numbers digit by digit, not as whole quantities, so that "ninety" cannot be heard as "nineteen". Preface a string of figures with the proword FIGURES so the receiver knows numbers are coming and reaches for the pen. Say "niner" for nine, so it is not lost against "five" in noise, and "decimal" for a decimal point. A grid reference is read as its digits in order, and a casualty or a frequency the same way. When you spell a difficult word, use I SPELL and the phonetic alphabet. None of this is decoration; each convention exists because the plain way of saying it has, at some time, been misheard with a cost.
Readback is the practice that catches the error before it does harm. For any critical detail, a grid, a frequency, a casualty count, a time, the receiving station reads it back and the sending station confirms it, so that both hold the same value and any slip is caught at once. The sender may prompt this with READ BACK; the receiver answers I READ BACK and repeats the detail; the sender confirms with ROGER, or corrects with WRONG and sends it again. This costs a few seconds and removes the worst class of error there is, the one no one notices until it is too late. Make readback automatic for numbers and grids, asked for or not.
The same care governs the written message handed to you to send. Often you will not compose the message yourself: the section commander, or a casualty's buddy, will hand you a message, written or spoken, to put on the net. Treat it as a relay, not a rewrite. Read it back to the person who gave it to you, then send it faithfully, then read back any critical detail to the receiving station. If anything in it is unclear or incomplete, settle it with the originator before you key, not on air; the net is no place to discover that the grid is missing. This is the meeting point between the operator and the staff: the originator owns the content, you own its faithful and accurate passage, and PME 210, Basic Staff Duties and Written Orders, teaches the originator's side, how a clear written message and order is composed in the first place.
In Practice: A Sighting and a Twisted Ankle
A four-person RKA patrol is moving on a community-resilience exercise, working a licence-free set, with Corporal Vane's section signaller, call sign 2-1, carrying the net to the net control station, call sign 2. The patrol halts. Through the trees they see three people in high-visibility jackets moving on foot along a track, plainly not part of the exercise. The Corporal wants this reported. The signaller does not key at once. He takes out the message pad, fixes the SALUTE headings in mind, and reads off the grid from the map: Size, three persons; Activity, moving on foot west along the track; Location, grid one four zero four seven zero; Unit or Uniform, unidentified, high-visibility jackets, no markings; Time, the time now, which his watch in Zulu makes 1530; Equipment, none seen. He writes it, checks it is complete, then calls.
"Two, this is Two-One, SALUTE, over." Cleared to send, he passes it in order, prefacing the grid with FIGURES and reading the digits one by one. The control station reads the grid back; the signaller confirms it. Control answers ROGER, observe and report, WAIT, and the signaller writes the whole exchange into his log against the time, with the grid in full. The sighting is now usable information at the higher station, and there is a timed record of it.
A few minutes later the situation changes: a member, crossing broken ground, turns an ankle and cannot walk. Now speed matters more than polish, so the signaller sends a CONTACT-style first word at once, "Two, this is Two-One, casualty, one member, ankle, cannot walk, more to follow, over", so that higher knows immediately. Then he composes the fuller request on the pad, working the 9-line: the location to send help to as a grid, his call sign and how to be called back, the priority, no special equipment needed, one casualty, walking-wounded who must be carried, the site secure and safe to approach, how he will mark it, the casualty a friendly exercise member, and the ground a wooded slope. He reads the grid back to himself against the map, calls, passes the nine lines in order, and obtains a readback of the grid and the priority. Every message, the first word and the full request, goes into the log with its Zulu time. When a relief signaller takes the net later, he reads that log and knows in a minute exactly what has happened and where things stand. Nothing here was dramatic. The signaller thought before he keyed, used the formats so nothing was dropped, kept his times in Zulu, read his grids back, and logged it all, and that is what made the patrol legible to the rest of the force.
Check Your Understanding
- Explain the habit "think before you key" and the order of work before sending a formatted message. Then give the headings, in order, of a SITREP and of a SALUTE sighting report, and say when a CONTACT report is used instead of a full report.
- Write the date-time group for the eighth of June 2026 at twenty past nine in the evening, Zulu, and read it aloud as you would on the net. Explain why the whole force works to one time standard (Zulu/UTC) and what goes wrong without it.
- What is a signals log, what does each entry contain, and give three reasons every station keeps one. Then describe how you would send numbers and a grid reference accurately, and what you do with a written message handed to you to transmit.
Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson rests on a single idea: that a message must be composed, complete, exact, and recoverable, not merely spoken. Think about a time you passed information to someone in a hurry, on the radio, on the telephone, or face to face, and it went wrong, the wrong number, the missing detail, the thing forgotten in the moment. Which of this lesson's disciplines, composing before keying, using a known format, the digit-by-digit number, the readback, the written log, would have caught it? Consider one of these you find hardest to do under pressure, and how you would build the habit so that it holds when a real situation is developing around you.
Summary
- Think before you key: compose the message in your head or on paper before transmitting, so it is short, complete, ordered, and unambiguous. The order of work is decide who it is for, choose the format, gather and write the detail (numbers and grids exact), check it, then call and pass it with a readback.
- Know the standard reports cold. The SITREP gives your situation (location, activity, state, intention, anything of note). The CONTACT report is the fast first word, with full detail to follow. The SALUTE sighting report covers Size, Activity, Location, Unit or Uniform, Time, Equipment. The 9-line casualty report carries, in fixed lines, everything a responder needs to come to a casualty. The format is a memory: it keeps you from leaving out the one thing that matters.
- The whole force works to one time standard, Coordinated Universal Time, written Z and spoken "Zulu", in the 24-hour clock. A date-time group such as 121530Z JUN 26 pins an event to an exact instant that means the same to every station, so reports, logs, and orders can be lined up and shared actions set without confusion.
- Every station keeps a signals log: a contemporaneous line-by-line record of each message in and out, with the time (Zulu), the stations, and the gist, numbers and grids written in full. It lets stations recover missed traffic, gives the net control station the picture, hands over cleanly between operators, settles disputes, and is the timeline from which the force learns.
- Accuracy on detail is the core of the job. Speak numbers digit by digit, prefaced with FIGURES, "niner" for nine and "decimal" for the point, and read every grid, frequency, count, and time back so errors are caught at once. A written message handed to you is relayed faithfully, not rewritten: read it back to the originator, send it as given, read critical detail back to the receiver, and settle anything unclear off the net.
- This lesson builds on FLD 220 (Signals and Field Communication) and Lessons 01 to 03 of this course, and it meets PME 210 (Basic Staff Duties and Written Orders), which teaches the originator's side: how a clear written message and order is composed before it ever reaches the operator. It supports HCR 220 (Emergency Preparedness and Civil Resilience) and FLD 230 (Patrolling and Tactical Movement), where reports and the log keep a moving force legible to itself.
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