Hi Andy, Within the past year, the Winlink system has basically evolved to become the standard ham radio Emcomm messaging "backbone".
The Winlink development team has upgraded the system from the previous system, and now has all the RMS (Remote Message Servers) access points communicating directly with international reduntant CMS (Central Message Servers) in different parts of the world. Several different programs exist (that run at the sites of the different types of RF access points) for communicating with the CMS system. There are built-in backups for direct RF-to-RF relay in the access point programs... in the event that your RF access point can't communicate with a CMS directly, you can use the RF access point for RF-to-RF regional or local relay. A single Winlink.org email address "account" now gets you a portability of choices to go through one, any, or all of the different types of RF and wired methods, modes, and access points to send/receive email messages, position reports, and email/SMS phone texting. You can go RF or directly through the web or POP3, whatever you have. This is the kind of seamless access and redundancy that is expected and needed these days for real world emcomm messaging stuff. The methods for Winlink system access have been increasing so fast in the past year, it is difficult for some of us to keep up with. But here is a partial list of what I know of (someone please correct me if I made a mistake or left something out)... HF via Pactor 1,2,3 (email with attachments) HF via ALE (AMD single line text, DBM ARQ multiline text) VHF/UHF via Packet (email with attachments) APRS (text message via commands in the comment line) VHF/UHF via D-Star data (new) POP3 Webmail At this point, it is so easy to provide interconnectivity on HF/VHF/UHF with the Winlink system, that there simply isn't any excuse for not using it (except for personal ego or blood feud). Winlink is simply one of the best ham radio emcomm messaging tools you can have in your toolbox. There just isn't anything like it out there that provides what it does. 73 Bonnie VR2/KQ6XA --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Aside from PACTOR, NBEMS and ALE, which has seemed to be moderately > active , what is the latest in emergency communication protocols ? I > did manage to use AIRMAIL a few years ago, just to see if it could > work. I vaguely recall something recently that said they have revised > some aspects of Winlink and eliminated Telpac, is that correct? If > so, what did they replace it with? > > Andy K3UK >
