Winlink Thursdays: How Do They Work?
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Step One: Find your Clearinghouse Tactical Winlink Address here... |
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Step Two: This Week's Winlink Thursday assignment: |
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[to find pre-2023 Winlink Thursdays, and their results, click here] |
[Click on a ▶ link, to expand its contents]
General Notes on Frequently-Seen Mistakes... Please Read!:
General Notes:
We see many of the same mistakes being repeated week
after week, across different exercise types, so we think it’s worthwhile to call these out.
Sending incorrect longitude and latitude data
We use the latitude and longitude data to plot you onto maps. Sometimes that map data
is obviously incorrect. This occurs when folks in the Western Hemisphere omit the minus sign in front of
longitude or when folks in the Southern Hemisphere omit the minus sign in front of latitude.
The use of a GPS dongle helps to mitigate against this. If you’re not using a GPS dongle,
do take extra care in copying/pasting or entering those numbers
Incorrect format when answering a multiple choice question
When we ask a multiple choice question on a Winlink Check In message, we require the
answer to be in a specific format: a single character, uppercase letter on the first line of the Comments field.
We don’t want any punctuation before or after that single letter. We don’t want an explanation.
We just want a single letter.
Here’s a partial list of answers that we consider “not valid”:
- B is the answer
- The answer is B
- “B”
- B.
Not sending to an ETO clearinghouse
We use a group of volunteers to act as the “Clearinghouses” for most exercises.
The purpose of the Clearinghouses is to divide the work that we do to process your messages. Each Clearinghouse
has a specific Winlink tactical address: ETO-01 through ETO-10 (corresponding to USA FEMA regions), plus ETO-DX
for non-US participants and ETO-CAN for Canada.
If you don’t address your message to one of these tactical addresses, we won’t receive
your message.
Even though some Winlink Templates, such as the Winlink Check In, allow you to address
your message directly from the message itself, we strongly discourage this. Instead, we would strongly encourage
you to create a Winlink “contact” for your clearinghouse.
Then, after you hit the [Submit] button on the template, click on the [To:] button and
select your clearinghouse contact.
Yes, it’s a bit more work to set up, but once you have it correctly set up, you will not
make an accidental mistake by entering “ETO-1”, or “ETO-O1” ( with a letter "O" next to the "1" ) when you meant
to enter “ETO-01” ("eee-tee-ohh-dash-zero-one").
Results for April 13th "Weather Report": |
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4/13/2023 "Local Weather Report": Results Map |
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The table below contains the grading key that was used to grade the exercise.
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Field Name | Grading Criteria | |
Observer Name: | Filled In | |
DateTime: | Filled In | |
Location: | Filled In | |
LAT: | Filled In | |
LON: | Filled In | |
City: | Filled In | |
County: | Filled In | |
State | Filled In | |
Current Conditions | Filled In | |
Temperature | Filled In | |
Wind Speed: | Number & Estimated selected | |
Notes: | Filled In | |
Breakdown of Errors by Message Field | ||
Field | Number of Messages With Errors | Percent of Messages With Errors |
Wind Speed: | 87 | 15.62% |
Location: | 74 | 13.29% |
Notes: | 31 | 5.57% |
State | 12 | 2.15% |
Current Conditions | 12 | 2.15% |
County: | 9 | 1.62% | City: | 3 | 0.54% |
Example of Completed Local Weather Report |
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If you have questions please send email to: ETO.Technical.Team@EmComm-Training.groups.io
Regards,
The ETO team
"How do I find my Check-In on the Map?"
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[Click on the ▶ or the line of text above, to expand its contents]
Please send any questions about the Winlink Thursdays to: ETO.Technical.Team@EmComm-Training.groups.io
Please send any questions about our group on groups.io to: main+owner@EmComm-Training.groups.io
73's from the EmComm Training Team
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Find YOUR Region's Clearinghouse Tactical Address HERE... |