Is this added to the base game, or do you need to do some tricks to get this to work?

I think I boot up the simulator too sporadically to join a VA, I've read multiple VA's that require you to fly at least once a month. Plus it feels a bit limiting in a way? Not being in a VA allows you to fly where ATC is on Vatsim and wherever in the world you want.

You may copied the URL of the page instead of the image URL.
Be sure to right click the image, and copy the image URL, instead of the URL of the webpage. So in case of Imgur, the URL should look like i.imgur.com , instead of imgur.com