How to Send a Radiogram

The American Radio Relay League has “relay” in its name for a reason. Passing written messages from one station to the next is one of the oldest jobs in ham radio, and the ARRL radiogram is the standard form for doing it. The same format works on phone, CW and digital modes.

Even if you never become a nightly traffic handler, learning the radiogram teaches you to copy accurately and send cleanly. Those are exactly the skills served agencies want from hams when the phones are down.

The Four Parts

A radiogram always runs in this order, whether you write it on the yellow ARRL form, type it into a computer, or copy it on a pad by the radio.

1. Preamble: The message’s ID and handling information, eight fields in a fixed order.
2. Address: Who it goes to, as complete as you can make it.
3. Text: The message itself, ideally 25 words or fewer.
4. Signature: The name of the person sending it.

On the form, a break separates the address from the text and the text from the signature. When you send by voice, you say the word “break” at those two points.

Filling in the Preamble

• Number: Your own running message number. ARRL suggests starting again at 1 each month or each year.
• Precedence: How urgent it is (see the next section).
• HX: Optional handling instructions. For example, HXC asks the delivering station to report the date and time of delivery back to you. The list was revised in late 2025, so use the current one on the ARRL NTS site.
• Station of Origin: The call sign of the first ham to handle the message, usually you.
• Check: The count of word groups in the text only.
• Place of Origin: The city and state where the message started. It does not have to be where your station is.
• Time Filed: Optional for most messages.
• Date: The month and day the message was filed.

Precedence

Precedence decides which messages move first. The traditional four are listed below from least to most urgent. On CW the first three are sent as a single letter, R, W or P, right after the message number. EMERGENCY is always spelled out, on every mode.

• Routine: Everyday messages such as greetings. In a disaster these move last, if at all.
• Welfare: Inquiries about the health and safety of someone in a disaster area, or “all is well” replies.
• Priority: Important messages with a time limit, such as official traffic or notice of a death or injury in a disaster area.
• Emergency: Life-and-death urgency, sent only when normal communications are not available. Be certain before you use it.

The ARRL NTS site also describes a newer CERTIFIED precedence. It is meant for a personal message to someone the sender knows, with an address that has been checked, and it should be delivered within 48 hours of origin. A certified message must carry its time filed in UTC, and it may not be used for bulk greetings to strangers.

Address, Text and Signature

Give the full name, street address, city, state, ZIP code and telephone number. The delivering station may be across the country and has only what you wrote. Addresses use no punctuation except a slash, and phone numbers are written as groups of digits with spaces instead of dashes.

Keep the text short and plain. Write the letter X where a period would go, and the word QUERY for a question mark. The text may never end with an X.

ARRL also publishes a list of numbered texts that stand in for common messages. You write ARL followed by the number spelled out, and the delivering station writes out the full meaning. For example, ARL FIFTY means “Greetings by Amateur Radio,” and ARL FORTY SIX is a birthday greeting. The signature is simply the sender’s name, sent the same careful way as the address.

Counting the Check

The check is the number of groups in the text, where a group is anything with a space on each side. The address and signature are not counted. These rules, from ARRL’s NTS guidelines, cover most cases:

• Each X and each QUERY counts as one group.
• A run of figures with no spaces, such as a year, is one group.
• In a numbered text, ARL is one group and each spelled number word is another, so ARL FORTY SIX is three groups.
• If the text uses any ARL text, put ARL in front of the count in the check, as in ARL 6.

So the text ARL FIFTY HOPE ALL IS WELL has six groups, and its check is ARL 6. If a station later finds the count does not match, it never changes the original. It adds the corrected count after a slash, so a check of 13 that turns out to be 12 becomes 13/12.

Passing It on a Net

On a traffic net, you check in and tell net control you have traffic and where it is going. Net control then pairs you with a station heading toward that destination. You may pass it right on the net frequency, or net control may send you both a few kilohertz away to pass it and then return.

By voice, you say “number” and read the preamble, then the address, then “break.” Pause briefly so the receiving station can ask for fills. Read the text, say “break” again, read the signature, and finish with “end” followed by “no more” or “one more.” Say “I spell” before spelling a word, “figures” before numbers, and “initials” before letter groups. When the receiver confirms the copy, you both report back to net control.

A message for someone who is not a ham is third-party traffic. FCC rule 97.115 allows it to any station in the United States, but messages to another country are allowed only where that country has an agreement with the U.S., or for emergency and disaster relief.

Getting Started

The National Traffic System (NTS) is ARRL’s network of local, section, region and area nets that meet every day of the year. The ARRL NTS Page links to the current radiogram form, the handling instructions, the numbered texts and a net directory.

1. Find your local or section traffic net through your club or our page on Clubs and Nets.
2. Listen for a week with a pencil, copying whatever traffic goes by.
3. Write a short greeting to a ham friend, count the check twice, and check in.

Net members are glad to coach a newcomer through a first message. To learn how the net itself is run, read our guide to Nets and Net Control.