Welcome to week 3 of the WCARES Weekly Winlink Net!
[ I added directions for sending photos at the end of this page. ]
Summary: Main task: Send an ICS 213 form.
Challenge task: Attach a digital photograph.
Background Information:
Last week, you were asked to send a simple, plain-text check-in message using Packet mode. This week you’ll use an ICS 213 General Message form to convey your check-in.
Winlink Express provides support for creating and sending numerous forms used by our served agencies. In Winlink Express these are called Templates.
This week’s exercise: Create an ICS-213 form in Winlink Express, and include your check-in identification string in section 7. Send your ICS 213 form to the tactical call sign WCARES-NCS using any RMS station and RF mode of your choosing. If you’re unable to send your message via RF, you may use Telnet.
Here are the steps you’ll need to follow to complete this week’s exercise.
Click on the “Message” menu item, then select “New Message”. A New Message window will be displayed. Alternately, you use the one-click message box.
Address your message to: WCARES-NCS.
Identify the Subject of your message as, “WCARES Weekly Winlink Net 3“.
Click on the “Select Template” menu item, and the Template Manager window will be displayed. You can either
a) single-click on the Standard Templates plus symbol, or
b) double-click on the “Standard Templates” menu item to see a list of all of the forms that Winlink Express provides. Do some browsing in this list to get a feel for what’s available.
Double-click on “ICS USA Forms“, and you’ll see the list of ICS forms available in Winlink Express. Double-click on the “ICS213 General Message.txt” form. At this point, Winlink Express will open a browser window so that it can display a realistic version of the ICS 213 form. This can be a little unsettling the first few times you see it, but as you gain more experience with creating ICS (and other) forms, you’ll get accustomed to this detour.
Note: Hospital hams might prefer to use the HICS (hospital ICS) forms. The box numbers may vary slightly.
Be sure to check the “THIS IS AN EXERCISE” box at the top of the form.
Enter “WCARES-NCS” in Field 2.
Enter your name in Field 3.
Enter “WCARES Weekly Winlink Net 3” in Field 4.
Winlink Express will fill the current date and time in Fields 5 and 6 if you put your cursor in the fields, left-click once and confirm by clicking the “OK” button.
Insert your check-in sentence in Field 7 of the ICS 213 form. As a reminder, the following data elements, separated by commas, make up the check-in sentence.
Here is the format:
<Week number>,
<Your call sign>,
<the Winlink Express Mode employed, eg., Packet, VARA FM, or Telnet>,
<the call sign of the RMS station used to send the message (use N/A if you respond via Telnet>,
<the frequency of the RMS station used (use 0.000 if you respond via Telnet)>,
<City>,
<County>,
<State> Spell out the full word
Here is an example of a validly-constructed check-in sentence:
3, KF7NKE, VARA FM, KD7REX-10, 145.040, Beaverton, Washington, Oregon
Enter your name in Field 8. In field 8b you can enter “WCARES RADO.”
*** IMPORTANT *** Before exiting your browser window you should SAVE your work.
This is a very important step because once you click the “Submit” button, the entries you’ve made in your ICS 213 form are marked as read-only and CANNOT BE EDITED. For example, you may need to edit your ICS 213 form if you’re unable to connect to the RMS station that you listed in your check-in sentence. If you haven’t saved your work, you’ll have to re-type all of your entries when you create a replacement ICS 213. More about this later.
When you click the “Save ICS213 INITIAL Data” button, Winlink Express will create in your Downloads directory a backup of the data you entered in the form. The name of the saved data file will be based on the ICS form number and the date and time that you finished entering your data. Here’s an example of a saved data filename: “ICS-213 data 2024-04-05 15_24.txt”.
After you have saved your form data, click the “Submit” button. You’ll see a dialog box that tells you to close your browser window and return to the Winlink Express “New Message” window so you can post your message to the Outbox. Click “OK”. You will be returned to the new message window showing a text version of the ICS 213 that you have just created. Post your message to the Outbox.
We’re going to take a short time-out from creating our response message to explain a few Winlink Express behaviors. First, take a few moments to inspect the displayed message. You’ll see the numbered sections of the ICS 213 form, along with your entries, are displayed as plain text in the message window. More importantly, you’ll also see that two files have been attached to your message: “RMS_Express_Form_ICS213_Initial_Viewer.xml” and “FormData.txt”. Winlink Express uses these two files to pass your ICS form data to your message recipient.
The first of these two files is an XML representation of your ICS 213 form. If the recipient of your message uses Winlink Express to view your message, this XML file will be used by the recipient’s browser to create a realistic display of your ICS 213 form. If the recipient of your message uses an email client other than Winlink Express, they will see the contents of the plain text FormData.txt file. This approach ensures a) the smallest-possible message size, and b) a realistic rendering of the ICS form if the recipient views it in Winlink, and a text version of the ICS form if the recipient views it in an email client other than Winlink Express.
Because both of these attachments contain your responses, Winlink Express does not permit you to make any edits to your message. If you were allowed to change the displayed plain text, it would no longer agree with the attached XML and FormData files.
What can you do if you realize that you forgot to attach a file, or you need to amend your check-in sentence? You’ll need to delete your existing ICS form and create a replacement. This is where having saved your work before hitting the “Submit” button pays off. If you have already posted your message to the Outbox, delete the message. (You don’t want the old version of your ICS 213 form hanging around.)
Start the message creation process all over again. If you need to attach a file, do that before selecting the ICS 213 form. This second time around, when the form is displayed in your browser window, click the “Load ICS213 INITIAL Data” button. Browse to your Downloads directory, and select (double-click) the file holding your saved input data. The fields in the ICS 213 will be populated with your original entries. Make any needed changes to your entries, then save your work and submit this new form.
OK, we’ve reached the end of our educational detour. Let’s get back to completing this exercise.
Post your ICS 213 message to the Outbox.
Open a Winlink Session, being mindful of the data throughput differences between Packet and registered VARA FM.
Use the Channel Selection tab to open the Channel Selector menu. Use the Update Table via Internet tab to refresh the RMS station list.
Choose an RMS station by double-clicking on the line identifying that station.
Set the RMS station’s radio frequency on your transceiver.
Connect to your chosen RMS station by Starting your Winlink Session.
Optional Challenge: Attach a photo to your check-in. It could be a fire hydrant, storm drain, bridge, Go Bag or whatever. Limit the size of your attachment to 30-50 kBytes by using the Resize feature of the Attachments window.
The attachment for this week’s exercise is a fresh image (one you’ve just taken).
This means that you’ll need to attach your go bag photo to your message PRIOR to SUBMITTING your ICS 213 form. Additionally, you need to stay below the Winlink maximum message size of 120 Kbytes, so limit the size of your attached photo. Do this one on VARA FM up to maybe 30-50K We will stay away from Packet for large messages such as this. Telnet can handle larger messages (such as 70-100K). If you are unable to send your reply via a Winlink RF mode, you may use Telnet.
Let’s begin with the photo. You will probably use your cell phone to take this photo. That’s fine; cell phone photos are more than adequate for this task. The challenge will be getting the photo from your phone to your computer so Winlink Express can use it.
In “normal” conditions, you could send the photo to yourself in an email, open the email on your laptop or desktop computer and save the attachment to your desktop. Winlink Express could then attach the photo to your message from the desktop.
If the internet is not available during an emergency, how will you get the photo from your phone to Winlink Express on your computer?
Your digital go bag should include a data cable for connecting your phone to your computer running Winlink Express. Make sure that it’s a data cable (usually provided as part of your cell phone purchase), and not a charging cable (which looks identical to a data cable but has only two conductors instead of four.) The Dollar Tree currently carries a USB-C to USB-C cable capable of charging and data transfer. It may not be as durable as more expensive cables, but it worked for me as a backup.
Here is a link to a Microsoft support article that describes how to import photos from iOS and Android phones into Windows: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/import-photos-and-videos-from-phone-to-pc-198f2301-e9a7-c734-5f39-a8946a5ebc99. You will need to copy this link and paste it into your browser’s address field – Winlink Express doesn’t support hyperlinks. Note that the steps listed in the article work only if a) your photo is stored on your phone, and not in the cloud, and b) you’re using a data cable, and not a charging cable.
Here’s how to attach your photo: Create a new Winlink message. Click the “Attach:” button, and an Attachments window will be displayed. Click “Add”, and a Select An Attachment window will be displayed. Browse to the directory where you stored your go bag photo. Double-click your photo and you’ll be returned to the Attachments window.
** Note that the size of your photo will have a red background, indicating that it exceeds the maximum permissible Winlink message size.
Click “Edit/Resize-Image” and an editing window will be displayed. You can crop out
extraneous portions of your photo to reduce its size. Click “Resize” and you’ll see another window asking what size you’d like to the image to be. For this exercise, specify 30-50 Kbytes and click “Change Size”, then “Save”. You’re almost done. Click “Save changes”,
then “Finished”, and your re-sized image will be attached to your message.
Here are the steps you’ll need to follow to complete this week’s exercise:
1) Take a photo of your go-bag.
2) Import your photo to the Desktop or Pictures directory (or other location of your choice) on your Winlink Express computer.
3) Create a new Winlink Express message addressed to WCARES-NCS.
4) Attach your photo to your message.
5) Re-size your photo to a maximum of 30-50 Kbytes and save it.
6) Select the ICS 213 form template and complete the fields of your ICS 213 form.
7) Create your check-in sentence and place it in section 7 of the ICS 213.
8) Save your ICS 213 entries to your Downloads folder before submitting your form.
9) Submit your form and close your browser window.
10) Post your message to the Outbox.
11) Send your message by starting a Winlink Express VARA FM or Packet (or Telnet) session.
Thanks to the original creators of this content, Lake Oswego ARES of Clackamas County ARES. Any errors are mine.
