Greetings. Jason K3JSJ has built an app to process check-ins which will really speed things up and make the list of check-ins more accurate. This week's results will be available on varacwednesday.net later today or tomorrow.
Having said that, I've been doing a lot of hand editing to make sure everyone who intended to check-in got counted. With the new program, there are a few things to be aware of:
The message "check-in" line must begin with your callsign followed by a comma.
If you misspell your call, you will not be counted. Winlink Wednesday has the same requirement.
If you use the ICS-213 form, "Message" must include the standard check-in. If it doesn't, you won't be counted because the app will expect to find your call there. See the example filling out an ICS-213 at https://www.varacwednesday.net/about.html#instructions
Jason has attempted to put a number "flexibilities" in the app for common mistakes and "creative ways" people have used to check-in because what we're attempting to do is increase VarAC activity and not be too strict in interpreting what is and isn't a valid check-in.
The App also creates a list of emails for manual checking. However, making sure you have a canned message with the correct format will go a long ways to making this a smooth and fun process.
On Gateways, we're no longer reporting the number of times a Gateway was used. The high number of duplicate check-ins makes this a tad meaningless. Also, what's really important here is showing the Gateways that people are using to check-in.
The software handles the duplicate check-ins just fine and we don't want to discourage people from trying different Gateways to see if they can check-in using a Gateway they might not normally use.
As a reminder, the Gateway station must be displaying the lightning bolt symbol. If it isn't that Gateway will only accept VMAILs and/or it is whitelisting emails. See "Limit acess to:" in Settings -> Email-> Email gateway in VarAC. You'll notice that if this is checked, the "Announce gateway via beacons" will deselect.
73,
Mark KB0US
Jason K3JSJ
