Winlink

I have the new Pixel 10 Pro XL, so I needed to setup Winlink again. I purchased WOAD this time from Play store, and signed up for access to the beta. Previously, I had installed the downloaded APK. One can export sessions from old WOAD, but there’s no way to import it into my new phone.

I’m having trouble getting a node that reliably does Winlink. K3IR seems to fail to connect and complete the transaction. I could use the BBS nodes at KA3TKW and W3CRS. Just watching packets on 145.010 shows some advertisements of services on nodes: Winlink, BBS, and mail

General Meeting News

• Harrisburg Packet Node
  • W3ND
  • 145.010
  • 145.030
  • BBS available
  • vara-fm and winlink available soon
• K3IR active for PA QSO party at site
• picnic coming up in a month
• Red Rose Hamfest is Oct 4
• September meeting may be search and resucue
• at the training center October-March

Presentation: Winlink w/ Harry N3FMO

• winlink net
• saturn net: emergency services and salvation army
• initially, saturn was only during the day for retired people
• first weekend Harry ran the net on winlink, 20M, he got 70 check-ins.
• winlink is good for emcomm
• winlink is familiar as email
• lots of templates to use
• can use telnet if internet is available
• HF can be slow for a large volumes
• using telnet can keep RF available
• https://winlink.org/
• for Harry’s net, email: satemail
  • Noon Thursday - Noon Saturday
  • stations can be placed on the map with “mymaps”
  • name, city, state, country
• K3IR-10 connects to winlink RMS

I recently added winlink back to my APRS ping on the UV-PRO. I immediately got a message from a Winlink gateway that I had 1 new Winlink message waiting. For the full RF experience, I fired up KISS on the UV-PRO and a session to K3IR’s Winlink gateway (145.030kHz) and checked my Winlink mail over the radio.

I needed to be careful to not let HT app start and re-enable “digital mode”. When “digital mode” is enabled, it would switch to APRS 144.390MHz every time WoAD would TX, and that doesn’t work. The hint was seeing APRS traffic in the WoAD log while waiting for my Winlink session to initialize.

The email was KC3WRY, Matthew, playing around sending Winlink via APRS. I acknowledged and responded to his message.

I connected up to Winlink through N3FYI’s gateway on 144.950MHz. using 1/4-wave antenna hanging in the tree. I also had set my APRS message to “Winlink”, so the Winlink server pinged me over APRS when I had a message. I’m not sure I could read the APRS message on the UV-PRO, though, since I let it sit too long. I had a message icon, but I couldn’t dismiss it.