October 4-5, 2025

EXERCISE, EXERCISE

This weekend we will exlore the POTA, SiOTA, SOTA and WWFF spot report.
This promises to be a valuable tool for xOTA activations with no internet.

Start a new message and select Standard Templates > GENERAL Forms > Specialized forms Off-Grid Spotting & Hunting > Off-Grid Spotting & Hunting.txt.
Click View Spots.
Select Pipe Delimited "|".
Click Submit.
In the message composition window, make sure "Send As:" is set to Winlink Message.
Click Post to Outbox.
Select Telnet Winlink and click Open Session.
When "Ready" is displayed, click Start.

Wait a minute or so., then click Start again.

Click Download Selected Messages.
View //WL2K - POTA Spots and copy from Activator through the last UTC to your clipboard.
Open your spreadsheet program and paste what you copied into the top left cell, ensure that pipe (|) is the Separator Option, then click OK. Your spreadsheet should show the current POTA spots. If not, you may hsve to save the text as a .csv file and open that.
Copy the first 2 rows of the spreadsheet (or the first 2 rows of the text in the message) to your clipboard (Activator through the first UTC). Start a new message and select Standard Templates > GENERAL Forms > Winlink Check-in.
Fill out the form as usual.

In COMMENTS:, paste the text you just copied and as a new line, enter your
call sign, first name, city or town, county, state, mode (Winlink HF, VARA FM, VHF packet, etc.)
2 letter state abbreviation and no parentheses, please.
Example:
Activator Park # Location Frequency Mode Grid Last Spotted
WN7JT US-3261 US-WA 144025 CW CN87ur 5 mins ago at 1:31 AM UTC
WB0GAG, Bruce, Muscatine, Muscatine, IA, VARA HF

Save a copy for later if you wish, review your message, then click Submit and set "Subject:" to "Iowa Winlink Weekend".