Welcome to week 4 of the WCARES Weekly Winlink Net!
Last week, you were asked to send your check-in message using an ICS 213 General Message form along with an attached image file.
A Review:
* Forms are displayed using your computer’s browser.
* ICS form contents are delivered as attached files.
* EDITS to forms are not permitted after you click the “Submit” button.
* It is important to ATTACH any files or photos to your message BEFORE selecting the ICS 213.
* SAVE your form data before clicking the “SUBMIT” button.
* You may RECALL your saved form data from the Downloads folder in the event you need to create a new, revised ICS 213 form.
In this week’s exercise, you have been sent TWO WLE emails: 1.) an ICS 213 form and 2.) the “call for check-ins” (this email).
Your Tasks
1. Request a SPECFIC WEATHER report from the WInlink System. Then send the resulting email.
2. Download the weather report (wait a bit, then check your WLE email).
3. Cut and paste the weather report into your clipboard.
4. Use the proper method to REPLY to the ICS 213 form. Paste in the weather report. Add your check in sentence. Send reply.
THE DETAILS
Your objective is to create a reply to the ICS 213 form, and submit your check-in sentence in SECTION 9 of that reply. The check in sentence is the one with the call sign, mode, RMS, Freq, City, County, State “string.”
Additionally, this week’s exercise will introduce you to Winlink Express catalog requests. You’ll use this functionality to include a weather summary in your ICS 213 reply.
The Winlink Express “catalog request” feature allows you to request information from external sources and receive responses. Perhaps the most useful
catalog requests are weather forecasts, summaries and condition reports. We will walk you through making a catalog request to obtain hourly temperature
and weather conditions for western United States cities, and copying and pasting that information into field 9 of your ICS 213 response above your
check-in sentence.
Here’s how this feature works: first, you create a request message using the catalog request feature. Next, you start a Winlink session to send the
request to the Winlink CMS servers. Wait a minute for your request to be passed to the external service that will fulfill your request (for our exercise,
this will be the National Weather Service), and for a response message to be created. Lastly, start another Winlink session to download the response message.
Here are the steps to follow:
Click the catalog request icon. The “catalog request icon” resembles a miniature card catalog in a library. It is the second icon to the right of the globe icon in the
Winlink Express toolbar.
You’ll see a window that lists all of the current catalog request choices. In the lower-right corner of the window you’ll see a button that will update, via the internet, your list of catalog requests. Click this button to ensure you’ve got the most recent list. Browse
the list to see what’s available – there’s a lot here!
All of the catalog requests dealing with weather have names that begin with “WX_”. Select “WX_US_HRLY_T” from the list, and in the center of the
window you’ll see three possible choices for this request.
We’re interested in current temperature and weather for the western United States, so
double-click on that option. The Inquiry ID for your request will be added to the list of Selections in the upper-right corner of the window.
Click the “Post Request” button, and a request message will be created and placed in your Outbox. Take a moment to look at the message in your
Outbox; you may be surprised at how concise it is.
Start a Winlink session. Your request will be uploaded to the Winlink CMS servers, and from there to the National Weather Service servers,
where a response message will be created and sent back to the Winlink CMS. Allow 2-3 minutes for this process to be completed.
Start another Winlink session. The Winlink CMS servers will deliver the weather summary message to your Inbox. Open the message, and using
either your keyboard or your mouse, copy the weather summary data to the clipboard. Now that your clipboard holds a copy of the weather summary,
you can close the message.
*** Here are the steps to follow to complete this week’s exercise:
Select (single-click) the ICS 213 form message that’s in your Winlink Inbox. That line will be given a blue background, and you’ll see a “paper
clip” icon at the far-left end of the line.
To view a fairly realistic version of the ICS 213 form, single-click on the paper clip icon. The form will be displayed in your browser.
Scroll to the bottom of the form. You will see data entry fields in sections 9 and 10 that are intended to hold reply to data. However, those fields are DISABLED, as indicated by the diagonal stripes displayed in the fields.
To create a response to this form, CLOSE the ICS 213 form in your browser window. This will return you to your Winlink Express Inbox screen.
Double-click on the selected ICS 213 message. You can do this anywhere on the line except where the paper clip icon is displayed. This will
open a text version of the ICS 213 form in a new window.
In this text-version window, you will see a “Reply” option in the menu bar near the top of the window. Single-click the “Reply” option and the ICS 213 form will be displayed again in your browser, but this time the fields in sections 9 and 10 will be ENABLED.
Place your cursor in Field 9 and paste the list of temperature and weather conditions for western US cities (currently on your clipboard) into the field.
INSERT TWO BLANK LINES, then type your check-in sentence in Field 9. (Instructions for creating a correctly formatted check-in sentence appear
below, if you need a refresher.)
Provide your name and callsign in the first field of section 10, either WCARES in the second field, and the current date and time in the third field.
As discussed previously, you should SAVE YOUR WORK to the Downloads directory before exiting your browser. This is an IMPORTANT step because once you click the “Submit” button, the entries you’ve made in your ICS 213 reply are marked as READ-ONLKY and cannot be edited.
Click “Submit”, close your browser window, and post your ICS 213 response message to the Outbox. Open a Winlink Session and send your response.
If you are unable to send your reply via a Winlink RF mode, you may use Telnet.
Have fun!
Appendix A:
CHECK-IN SENTENCE SPECIFICATIONS
Here is the list of data elements, separated by commas, that make up the check-in sentence.
<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, expressed to three decimal digits of precision (use 0.000 if you respond via Telnet)>,
<city>,
<county>,
<state>
Here is an example of a validly constructed check-in sentence:
4, KD7ISA, VARA FM, N1ACW-10, 145.530, Hillsboro, Washington, Oregon
Appendix B:
You don’t need to close your WLE session if you don’t want to. Simply keep your session running. This reduces a lot of faff. Only save things in the Outbox
that you are happy to send.
Here’s a timesaver for replying to a message:
To create a response to this form, close the ICS 213 form in your browser window. This will return you to your Winlink Express Inbox screen.
Double-click on the selected ICS 213 message. You can do this anywhere on the line except where the paper clip icon is displayed. This will open a text version of the ICS 213 form in a new window
Just highlight the message in the the Winlink Express main window by clicking on it. Then click on the reply button on the menu bar or use Message -> Reply …
