I'm not going to burden the freetel-codec2 group with repeated progress on
this project, I just wanted to close out the conversation for now. The work
on ICS forms is part of a much larger project that I am close to deploying
and you will see it when I do. There is, however, an opportunity to improve
on the ICS workflow currently presented by Winlink, which I experienced
while working for a local sheriff's communications team. And this is
related to freetel-codec2 because David's data modems would obviously be
part of the project.
I developed yesterday,guiding an AI to do the actual programming, a
heuristic program that ingests the actual FEMA forms much better, making up
for much sloppiness in the way people use Adobe Acrobat to make them. It's
perfect now on the 209 form, which is the most complex one, looks exactly
like the PDF, and has some niceties like linking the same-named fields
together (for example, there is Incident_Name and Incident_Number on each
page) and detecting fields that weren't designated as numeric by context.
The exact field names used by FEMA in Acrobat are used. Unlike Winlink, the
forms are not graphically modified as they are converted to SVG and HTML,
and transport data would be outside of the form. Z layers are used to be
easy on the renderer - when the cursor blinks it doesn't have to re-render
everything, and this stops Chrome "Aw Snap!" crashes. There are a few
glitches that existed when the forms departed FEMA that might be best fixed
with Acrobat (unless there is another good PDF editor capable of doing
that).
The opportunities that I see over the present Winlink.
1. Portability and device indepdenence: there is much opportunity for
handheld devices to be used in the field, and these run Android or iOS,
Windows portables other than Surface are no longer popular, and I can't say
much for Surface adoption. It is also a fact that rugged tablets and
Chromebooks that don't run Windows are much less expensive than my
Panasonic FG-Z1, and emergency responders already have them in hand and are
familiar with their operation. And finaly, let's get rid of the "Win" in
Winlink. Linux should be an option, as should whatever OS is in the device
you wish to use. Using portable Python3 and the web browser as an interface
seems to make this easily done.
2. Multi-Head per transport: The workflow in our sheriff's EOC was not
optimal. There was one person running Winlink and most communcations went
through her, and her workload was very high. Having multiple heads per RF
transport would be a better idea.
3. Transport independence. Winlink can work with a couple of RF modems,
obviously being able to slip a transport program into the system without
regard to the kind of transport would be optimal. David's data modems would
be an obvious choice.
With this said, I am going to finish the bigger project first, and the
capability to edit the ICS forms and transport them as JSON will be part of
it. The rest of this will be shelved until I am satisfied with the larger
project, unless someone else wants to take it up.
Thanks
Bruce
On Mon, Mar 9, 2026 at 1:19 PM Bruce Perens <[email protected]> wrote:
> I found the site where all of this is available for download. They
> transmit the data as a normal ASCII email message with known fields, and
> can reconstitute it into the form. They don't seem to have many of the FEMA
> forms (I have all of them), but they have a large collection of local
> forms. It would be no problem to interoperate with, but I think could be
> improved. They don't even have a checksum on the data, I guess relying on
> the Winliink transport.
>
> I am talking with a FEMA guy about this. The accounting load on them is
> something we don't often see. Every resource is accounted for, and if a
> state uses its FEMA funds improperly, they have to pay FEMA back. They had
> an old proposal to integrate the forms process into an accounting backend
> for logistics and accounting. I would implement it using Odoo and AI
> assistance for the coding (see
> https://github.com/BrucePerens/hams_community for my AI framework), but
> don't yet have all of the details necessary to do so.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2026 at 11:12 AM Don Reid <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I don't have a spec. Here is an example.
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> GENERAL MESSAGE (ICS 213)
>>
>> ** THIS IS AN EXERCISE **
>> 1. Incident Name: ODMT Winter FTX
>>
>
--
Bruce Perens K6BP
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