March 2000 QST

DIGITAL DIMENSIONWinLink 2000: A Worldwide HF BBSRemember the good old days, when youchose the best bulletin board system (BBS)in your neighborhood to serve as your“home BBS?” All your radio mail wouldbe addressed to you at your home BBS(you@yourhomebbs) and when youwanted to read your radio mail, youconnected to your home BBS.Problem was that when you were out oftown, on the road and out of range of yourhome BBS, you could not get your radiomail. Unless your home BBS provided alandline dial-in service and you weresomewhere where you could dial-in, youhad to wait until you got home before youcould receive your radio mail.The times have changed and today, thereis an HF BBS service that allows you topick up your mail anywhere in the world.The system is called WinLink 2000 and ithas a backbone network on the Internet,which allows all participating WinLinkmailbox operation (MBO) stations to sharetheir message databases. Therefore, a usercan connect to any participating WinLinkMBO in the world to send or retrievemail—doing away with the necessity ofhaving a home BBS.WinLink 2000 is a Windows applicationthat permits messages to be transferredautomatically between remote AmateurRadio stations and the Internet. “Remote” isdefined here as not having landline access.Therefore, WinLink 2000 provides Internete-mail access for maritime, recreationalvehicleand other remotely located AmateurRadio operators, enabling those traveling tomaintain contact with family and friends,regardless of their location.WinLink 2000 is the latest addition tothe WinLink suite of programs that permitPACTOR and PACTOR II Amateur Radiostations to use the Internet for the transferof messages that comply with the existingthird party traffic rules. In the August 1996installment of this column, I wrote abouthow APLink, a DOS AMTOR application,had evolved into WinLink. Three and onehalfyears later, I am writing how JimCorenmen, KE6RK; Hans Kessler, N8PGR;Rick Muething, KN6KB; Victor Poor,W5SMM and Steve Waterman, K4CJX, aretaking WinLink into the 21st century asWinLink 2000.WinLink 2000 is a BBS that provides forHF-to-HF and HF-to-VHF text messagetransfer as well as HF/VHF-to-InternetK4CJX’s WinLink 2000 Web page (http://winlink.org/k4cjx/) is the source foreverything you want to know about the software and more.e-mail transfer. It uses PACTOR I andPACTOR II for semi-automatic HF operation.The WinLink 2000 software scans theHF amateur bands continuously. Scanningtakes approximately 1.2 seconds perfrequency, with 8 to 21 frequencies to scandepending on propagation and time of day.When the software detects a station tryingto connect with it, it parks on that frequencyto send and receive traffic with that station.From the system operator’s point ofview, WinLink 2000’s modularity permitsa Sysop to run any one mailbox on differentcomputers. For example, all controlmodules may run on a computer in theSysop’s shack, while some or all TNC portcontrollers operate miles away at anyremote location with Internet access.From the user’s standpoint, accessing aWinLink 2000 MBO is the same asaccessing a WinLink MBO. You need notuse special software. Whatever you use forPACTOR or PACTOR II will do the job.There is software available that makes themailing process easier, however, likeAirMail. Just connect to the WinLink stationof your choice and you are off and running!Note that not all WinLink stations haveimplemented the Internet connection.Here is a very boring, but very useful listof frequencies used by the K4CJX WinLink2000 MBO. Center frequencies: 3618.9,3620.9, 3621.9, 7070.4, 7072.4, 7073.9,7075.9, 7076.9, 10121.9, 10122.9, 10123.9,10125.9, 10126.9, 14064.9, 14065.9,14069.9, 14071.9, 14072.9, 14073.9 and14076.9 kHz. For LSB, call 2.1 kHz abovethe center frequency, for USB 1.9 kHz below.Support for WinLink 2000 is available atwinlink.org/k4cjx/, where you can find adownloadable version of AirMail that iscompatible with WinLink 2000, as well as alot more information regarding the system.APRS ReduxI often mention APRS in this column andwhenever I do, readers ask me “What isAPRS?” To answer those questions, I havewritten a new book APRS: Tracks, Mapsand Mobiles, which should be availablefrom the ARRL and your favorite ham radiodealer by the time you read this. 1Also, available from your favorite hamradio dealer is a new dual-band (144 and 440MHz) mobile transceiver from Kenwood(the TM-D700A), which, like the TH-D7Ahandheld introduced a year earlier, has abuilt-in TNC and APRS software. Unlike thehandheld, the mobile APRS radio candigipeat. The radio has been the main topicof conversation on the TAPR hot technologyAPRS (HTAPRS) e-mail list for a monthnow, as owners are making new discoveriesabout the radio every day. (To subscribe toHTAPRS, go to http://www.tapr.org/.)1ARRL Order #7741, ARRL publications areavailable from your local ARRL dealer, ordirectly from the ARRL. See the ARRL Bookcaseelsewhere in this issue, or check outthe ARRL Web site at http://www.arrl.org/catalog.Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU One Glen Ave, Wolcott, CT 06716-1442 wa1lou@arrl.net, www.tapr.org/~wa1lou90 March 2000