To help Winlink's newbies overcome software fright when operating Winlink Express for the first time, San Diego, California ARES created a series of 24 short videos to help newcomers find the right button to click in the Express software menus. The topics of the short videos range in difficulty from simple, such as sending a Winlink email to a Gmail account, to challenging, such as using software tools to locate a neighbor operating in the vicinity.

The 24 videos range in length from one to five minutes and cover the tasks that a deployed operator might be expected to accomplish in the field.

The video content gives operators experience sending messages with and without attachments. For example, ICS Forms become .xml attachments for transmission; however, the Radiogram and Race Tracker templates re-format data but do not result in an outgoing attachment. The videos demonstrate sending both types of messages.

The videos provide tips for creating neatly-formatted, automatically-generated ICS Form 309 Comm Logs which are impressive documents to turn over to a Served Agency as soon as an exercise concludes.

The San Diego ARES Winlink video playlist is open to the public and is located at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-7mirT-kjfs84FQzLr-qv066Kl94rtYM

. . . Rob
K6RJF

13 February 2020--The Amateur Radio Safety Foundation Board of Directors today sent their comments to the ARRL Band Planning Committee about their draft recommendations for band changes to promote harmony on the HF bands, particularly between CW and digital operators. The Committee's recommendations can be reviewed here, and their full report here.

Below are the ARSFI comments verbatim. You can file your own comments here.
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Dear Band Planning Committee,

The Board of Directors of the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation, Incorporated (ARSFI) applaud and approve the committee’s proposal, with one exception which we hope is a mere oversight. Your proposed changes will go a long way towards reducing the mode collisions that spread ill will on the bands.

Our criticism of the ARRL Board’s minute 31 action combining 97.221(c) <500Hz signals into the same space as signals >500Hz in bandwidth is compensated with wider allocations. And the committee is wise to allow users to manage their usage within the new allocations. ARSFI will do all within our abilities and resources to make this work.

We have a serious concern about your proposal for 40M where there is no allocation for users outside of Region 2 to use wideband (>500Hz) modes. We have no objection to ACDS being limited for US licensees outside Region 2, but the concurrent limitation of using wideband modes by control operators present at their stations has negative consequences, such as prohibiting peer-to-peer communications between US-licensed stations or attended client stations on the high seas or in US territories to use efficient wide-band modes when connecting with lawful ACDS stations, either US- or foreign-licensed. This will make the use of routine and emergency radio email by US-licensed users at sea and in US territories outside Region 2 impractical and unnecessarily inefficient. Accordingly, we suggest adding between 7.100 and 7.125MHz an allocation for wideband (>500Hz) data for all license classes just as there is for users within Region 2. Again, we have no objection if this allocation does not include ACDS operation. Users of our suggested allocation would be client stations or operating Peer-to-Peer and will be present during operation at the control operator position.

We thank you for your dedication, fairness and hard work on behalf of all amateur radio operators. Thank you for standing up to those who resist the adoption of digital technologies and the changes needed to foster digital progress. Thank you for ignoring those who attack, belittle, and oppose changes toward anything that is not traditional or established technology. Future progress of the radio art will be digital.

73,
Lor Kutchins, W3QA
For the Board of Directors
Amateur Radio Safety Foundation, Inc.
And the Winlink Development Team

ADIF Analyzer is a new program for HF RMS operators from the Winlink Team. It is a companion program to RMS Trimode that displays charts, maps, and tables showing information about connections to the RMS.

The charts and tables include breakdowns by band, mode (Pactor/Vara, etc.), hour of day, day of week, month of year, range (distance) of connections, and registered country of the connecting call signs. A map display shows points where connections originated. You can click a connection point to get information about the connection.

More information is available to logged-in sysops along with a download link at this page. Give it a try!

--The Winlink Development Team