Station Activity Report — SAR

The Station Activity Report, or SAR, is a report of the traffic handled at your station.

The SAR is filed monthly, normally with your Section Traffic Manager (STM). In the report, you provide a count of the message  traffic handled by your station for the previous month. This information is used by the STM to get an idea of the amount of traffic handled in the section and of the trends (if any) in the traffic flow. Most STMs request that the SAR for each month be submitted in the first two or three days of the following month.

Traffic in the National Traffic System (NTS) is counted in a specific way. There are four categories of traffic handled in the NTS. These are originated (ORIG), sent (SENT), received (RCVD), and delivered (DLVD). You get credit for the appropriate categories for each piece of traffic handled.

An originated message is a message that is generated for a third party (someone other than yourself) and is a function not performed on the air. If you are at a Field Day event, for example, and a visitor comes up to you and asks to have you send a greeting from the field day site, that would be an originated message. For originating a message, you would receive one ORIG point.

A received message is a message you receive over the air formatted in the ARRL radiogram format. The message may be for you, it may be for delivery, or it may be relayed to another station. In any of these cases, you receive one RCVD point.

A sent message is a formal ARRL radiogram formatted message that you pass to another over an amateur traffic net. When you send a message on, you receive one SENT point for the message.

A delivered message is not done over the air. You receive a DLVD point for each message that you deliver to a third party, whether by email, telephone, or in person. A message given to another ham over the air is counted as sent, not as delivered, even if they are the addressee of the message.

These are the raw numbers you need in order to send a SAR to your STM. More information on counting messages is contained in Appendix B of the NTS Public Service Communications Manual (PSCM) available at the ARRL web site.

The format of the SAR varies from section to section. Appendix B, Chapter Seven of the PSCM has several examples showing separate ORIG/SENT/RCVD/DLVD types of SAR.

In the Ohio Section, the current STM only requires the traffic total in the SAR. The desired format is as follows:

1 R WB8YLO 3 TOLEDO OH JAN 2
DAVE WA3EZN
HILLIARD OH
=
DECEMBER TRAFFIC 99
=
STEVE WB8YLO/ORS

In December, I had 0 originations, 33 sent, 48 received, and 18 delivered. Add them all up and they equal 99. That is the number that is reported in the SAR I sent to my STM.

Check with your STM for the desired format and timing of the SAR in your section.