Monday’s May 8, 2017 Emcom net was great fun. We discussed the Communications Resource Function – Type I and Type II – and three of the CRF roles: Shadow, Mobile and Base. If you haven’t already, download the CRF Resource Guide at this link:   Current CRF Version (7/10) – PDF 

The CRF Resource Guide is provided courtesy of John Galvin, N5TIM, with the Garland ARES / RACES organization. We’ll continue our discussion of CRF data roles in the future after we become more familiar with Winlink and Fldigi.

Winlink, as you may recall from the net, is an email program that includes support for ICS213 and other messaging forms. Unlike Microsoft Outlook or the email app on your phone, Winlink can operate entirely via radio even when the Internet is impaired or failed.

Winlink is the choice of FEMA for State-to-Federal messaging, and is the choice of the State of Texas (State Operations Center or SOC, Camp Mabry, etc.) for county-to-State messaging. Dallas County and most counties in Texas have chosen Winlink as their standard, so it’s a very important capability that you, the Emergency Communicator, should have. Even if you aren’t an official Emergency Communicator, Winlink is a good mode for you to have to stay in touch with family and friends in the event of a widespread catastrophe.

I’m excited to announce that Andy Parcel, KE5KOF, will be training on Winlink at the May 27th Lab & Lecture. I’ll be there for comic relief, and to meet all of you Emcom enthusiasts in person.

Lab & Lecture will be on Saturday, May 27 at Dallas Medical Center at the corner of Webb Chapel and I-635 LBJ Expressway. Festivities will begin around 10 a.m. Directions are under Activities on the w5fc.org website.

What do you need to bring in order to participate? If you have not already created a Winlink account, go to www.winlink.org, download Winlink Express, install it and follow the instructions when you run it.

Install it on a notebook or laptop computer (you’ll need one with WiFi capability) and bring it with you to L&L. You will be creating and sending messages using Winlink Express and learning about Winlink Tri-Mode, Relay and various communications modes.

We’ll all use the Telnet mode for Lab & Lecture, and in a future L&L we’ll get our computers connected to our mobile, base and portable radios. For now, let’s all get familiar with Winlink.

See you there! And I’ll see you at the next Emcom 101 net, second Monday in June, June 12th, at 7 pm central time.

73,

Kevin, N5KRG@ARRL.NET