Hi Dave, I might point out that the Winlink system is a total HF solution and operated for many years. The owners of the system felt that this system was too slow and wanted a system that would operate primarily with e-mail connectivity. This developed into Winlink 2000 and removed much of the HF traffic off the ham bands and unto the internet. Of course such a system doesn't work if the internet fails, but the assumption is that can never happen except over a small area at any one time.
The Winlink system (some call it Winlink Classic) which evolved from the earlier Aplink system is used for some MARS activity, or was at one time, and it is also the same software that is used for the ARRL NTS/D system. The software is no longer maintained and the Winlink 2000 folks no longer want it used by anyone and have made some rather forceful comments to put it mildly. Therefore, there is a vacuum at the moment for a system that will work RF when needed and still can send via the internet for e-mail in those cases where you want increased speed and the ability to deliver to non-amateur radio addresses. Ideally, it would work in a similar manner to a decentralized system such as PSKmail which is not dependent upon one system run on the internet. Some would say that the downside of PSKmail type systems is that it can not be controlled by a few hams and would be available to anyone to set up as they chose to do so. This would be less structured along the lines of open software, however, my view is that is much closer to the tradition of ham radio. 73, Rick, KV9U Dave Bernstein wrote: >An HF email system that could operate entirely independently of the >internet (as opposed to using HF links to overcome local-area >internet outages) would require a significant infrastructure. Either >its a mesh, in which case users must be persuaded to keep their nodes >(transceiiver + PC running the app) running most of the time, or some >subset of users must be persuaded to deploy and maintain "super >nodes" that handle the routing. Given sufficient motivation, either >approach could be made to work, but what would be the rationale, Walt? > > 73, > > Dave, AA6YQ > > > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
