ARRL Iowa Section Winlink Exercises ARES logo ARRL logo

Winlink Saturday Winlink Monday


The goal of Iowa Section Winlink Exercises is to enable learning and practicing the use of the Winlink programs to prepare for their use with the agencies we intend to serve.

Iowa W1AW/0 activation
Volunteers on the Air

We will be practicing the various message forms we can expect to be asked to use.

Specific suggestions are welcome, especially incident scenarios and which forms to use. Planned scenarios include:

SPECIAL 4 Part Series: Winlink Forms,
“How to” provided by the Winlink Development Team:

This series is about the utilization of Form Templates and how to get the most out of them. Recently, the use of these form templates has increased, dramatically, and many are requesting more detailed information about how to use and configure these templates for their specific purposes.

Thursday, August 31st, Winlink Filtering of incoming Form Results.

Phil Sherrod, W4PHS, the current author of the Winlink programs set, including Winlink Express, will take the mystery out of the filtering available for obtaining the exact informations needed from incoming mappable form results. This is important in insuring that the results requested will be properly viewed properly, not only for the Winlink Express client maps, but also for the files produced for external GIS programs such as Google Maps or ArcGIS.

Thursday, September 7th, Winlink Forms Update.

On Thursday, September 7th, Oliver Dully, K6OLI, our Winlink Forms Manager, will demonstrate exciting updates to Standard Forms (e.g. Winlink Check-in, Quick Forms, etc.) and Specialized Forms (Cert etc.). As with Phil Sherrod’s filtering information, this will assist the user leveraging Winlink Form Data for visual display on GIS software, like Google Maps. ArcGIS, and more.

Thursday, September 14th, Practical Use of Winlink and Winlink Forms, an example from CERT in California.

On Thursday, September 14th, John “JT” Trenterud, K9ONR, will provide some practical applications of his use of Winlink Forms. John was invited by Oliver Dully, K6OLI, ther Winlink Forms Manager, to provide this example use of the Winlink Forms and more.

Thursday, September 21st, Managing Events with Winlink ICS Forms.

In this workshop, you will work with Oliver dully, K6OLI, and Winlink's robust ICS Forms library in planning events using the "Planning P." We will work on setting objectives (ICS-202) for your group, listing radio resources (ICS-217), devising a Radio Plan (ICS-205), providing assignments (ICS-204), and generating activity logs (ICS-214) and communications logs (Form 309). This workshop may be used as an example of how volunteer resources may apply their skills for agencies involved in emergency incidents.

Here is the URL and other such information for the RATPAC ZOOM sessions:

Join us live on Thursdays for these RATPAC Zoom presentations:

9:00 PM AST / 9:00 PM EDT / 800 PM CDT / 7:00 PM MDT / 6:00 PM PDT / 5:00 PM AKDT / 4:00 PM HADT/ GMT 01:00 AM Thursday https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2128884758?pwd=RG94eEY2L3FiMEg0U3ZIWmhXaEdwdz09

Meeting ID: 212 888 4758
Passcode: RATPAC

There are 2 exercises that are not Winlink, but are fun and very important. They are both part of the ARRL's Volunteers on the Air (VOTA) which runs all year.
The first is W1AW portable. Each state and territory has 2 weeks in 2023 to host this legendary callsign.
To sign up for one or more of the 2 hour slots during our week, just click the map for the sign-up form and more details about how we can represent Iowa to the world.
The other is the all-year VOTA. To participate, just get on the air and make contacts.
All scoring is done by Logbook of the World. To earn leaderboard points, there's nothing else you need to do.
To hand out leaderboard points, you only need to be an ARRL member and log your contacts to LotW. Click the VOTA logo to go to the information page. No sign-up is needed, but you can search for your standing.