[Peter, KI6FAO (treasurer)]

Our WinLink email station is now operational and undergoing performance testing. Winlink allows a licensed amateur to send and receive email to any internet address via radio at 1200 bps. That’s slow by modern standards, but the system is extremely robust and designed to continue operating even with wide-scale internet outage. In fact; an HF version of WinLink is used by sailors thousands of miles from home to retrieve weather information and exchange welfare and position email with friends and family.

The club radio is located on Skyline Boulevard and has excellent coverage in our Southcoast area as well as into Santa Clara and up into Redwood City. We’ve already handled traffic from stations in Cupertino and Bonny Doon. We expect this system will get a lot of use.

If you would like to try this system out, the frequency is 145.050 MHz 145.630 MHz and the SSID is W6SCF-10. You will need a VHF radio and TNC (or TNC software) and a computer running any of the popular client software like Outpost, AirMail, Paclink or RMS Express. You can find more information online, including at the link to the WinLink site, above, or you can search on “WinLink” or “packet radio” for a start.

[Peter, KI6FAO (treasurer)]

I’ve corrected my post: Our WinLink station W6SCF-10 is on 145.630 MHz.

[Neil, W6VG]

This looks great, but unfortunately I don’t see software for us Mac folks. At least one program will work on a dual boot Mac, but I’ve stopped using mine since it’s running XP. Any suggestions? Like N1HEL, I’m running an old laptop. Maybe I need to upgrade!

[Bob, W6RES]

Ah, Neil… it’s still a Windows/.net world out there, my friend. The WinLink team take cheery comfort in blithely asserting that there’s no problem at all now that Macs can run Windows.

I’ve spent some time this afternoon tinkering with RMS Express under Parallels, talking to my SignaLink USB. I can’t say it’s been much fun yet, but I’m holding out hope. 🙂

[Neil, W6VG]

Bob – Have you been able to get a message out to the station? I have Parallels, and could try that. That doesn’t avoid using XP though, correct?
I’ve heard there may be a tutorial in the near future on our WinLink station. I’m interested in seeing what’s involved in setting up a system.

[Bob, W6RES]

Not yet, but it turns out I was making it unnecessarily harder on myself yesterday afternoon. With Peter’s guidance, I’ll reengage this evening before the net to see if I can make something happen.

I don’t know how much a license for Windows 7 is these days, but once you have that, a current version of Parallels should run that like a champ. 🙂

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