I Just got a Rigblaster plug and play and wanted to test it with some 2m and 70cm winlink transmissions (probably into a digipeater then into a Igate). My issue is I dont know what freq I should be transmitting on to hit the Winlink servers. I plan to send some simple messages to Commercial email addresses. Winlink 2000 For someone who likes playing with technology I’ve got this fear of impending doom that as a species, the more we become reliant on technology, that bubble will eventually burst and we will either be returned to the state of hitting rocks against things to make sparks to light fires or we will be hunted down by Schwarzenegger.

For someone who likes playing with technology I’ve got this fear of impending doom that as a species, the more we become reliant on technology, that bubble will eventually burst and we will either be returned to the state of hitting rocks against things to make sparks to light fires or we will be hunted down by Schwarzenegger sized robots suffering from terminal acting syndrome!

Lets be honest the worlds financial systems now run in the construct of computer systems rather than in paper ledgers. When the power gets switched off that there ledger wasn’t such a bad idea!

As such I’m still a strong believer in engines without electronic management systems, mechanically wound watches and oil filled compasses!

Where’s this going you may ask yourself? Good question! Everyone loves being able to surf the net, send email, shop online etc etc. But what happens when the Internet gets switched off? Not such a silly question when you consider that a bloke in a JCB can put the scoop through a bundle of cables running up your street and cause havoc, a fire at the local telephone exchange can wipe out the internet for an entire city or a DOS attack on an ISP can level things at a national level!

This is where fall back systems are the best thing since sliced bread. Before the internet (and that wasn’t that long ago!) there was radio and people were doing some very clever things which have fallen out of mainstream fashion since the internet took off.

One of those things is packet radio and all of the embryonic systems which have become mainstay of the modern internet – mailboxes, email, bulletin boards.

I’m not going to regurgitate other peoples sites just to fill a page but have a Google and see what’s out there.

In short if you’ve got a radio and a way of connecting a computer to it you can in effect unplug the network cable and still achieve global communication via email without the internet. Having all of the required ingredients for this I delved into the world of Winlink and created an account.

http://www.winlink.org/ is a good place to start and a radio with a SignaLink USB can readily utilise WINMOR as a protocol without having to buy a hardware TNC, everything being done in software.

If you’ve got a few minutes the following video does a much better job at explaining how things work without being technically heavy.

As such with Winlink up and running amateur radio enthusiasts have a redundancy system which has a whole host of applications, least of all a means to let people know you are safe and well if you’re afloat on the ocean or if a civil emergency is declared and infrastructure is disabled by either them or us!

Just to prove it worked I sent myself an email!

Somewhat pointless people may argue but getting an email from A to Z via a series of other people’s radios is rather neat!

145.610 Winlink Digipeters

W9SM-2 KA-Node/ W9NA-2 KA-Node

last update 8/15/2012

WI ARES/RACES Digital Traffic and Training Net

This net is held every Tuesday evening at 9:00PM on 145.610. You can check into this net by connecting to your local Telpac Node (ours is W9SM-10) and sending a message to KB9MMC-5@winlink.org. In the subject line type Check In, (city), (traffic or no traffic). The NCS station will reply and send out who is on the net and if there is a topic or exercise for the evening. Check out this link for more information on the net and some examples.

The WVRA provides two Winlink 2000 Digipeaters to allow access to the Various Winlink 2000 Nodes in Marathon County. They are:

Winlink Digipeater – W9SM-2

The W9SM-2 KA-node (digipeater) (it used to be W9SM-7) is located at the FOX55 tower in the town of Hewitt, northeast of Wausau. The radio is a GE/Ericsson 2M MDX 40 watt mobile type radio. The TNC is a Kantronics KPC3+ running the 9.1 firmware programmed for KA-node operation. These are powered by an Astron SL-11 power supply. The radio is run into a WACOM duplexer that is also connected to the 146.265 receive radio. The output of the duplexer is fed into the VHF port of a PCTEL/Maxrad VHF/UHF diplexer. The output of the diplexer is connected to 7/8″ hardline that is then run up the tower to a level of 375ft. The total run of hardline is approx 575ft. The antenna is a Diamond X500HNA on a Pyrod 6ft side arm bracket.

10/15/07 – Set the TNC to the correct time and date. Also changed the “my alias” command to relay so that it will digi out the position strings from the Telpac nodes.

12/7/07 – Reprogrammed the “my alias” setting to none and programmed the “uidigi”, “uitrace” and “uiflood” parameters to the same settings used for APRS. Also got the node running on UPS power.

8/22/08 – Reprogrammed the SSID of the TNC from -7 to -2 to correspond with the settings suggested by Wisconsin ARES/RACES.

Radio and TNC Equipment for the W9SM-2 KA-Node at the Hewitt (Fox55) tower

W9SM-2 Winlink Digipeater Coverage Map

Winlink 2000 Frequencies

Winlink Digipeater – W9NA-2

The W9NA-2 KA-Node digipeater is located on Mosinee Hill in the town of Rib Mountain near Wausau. The digipeater is a GE/Ericsson MDX 40 watt mobile type radio and Kantronics KPC-2 TNC running version 3.0 firmware programmed for KA-Node operation and is powered by an GE auxiliary receiver power supply. The antenna is a Comet GP9 dual band mounted at 50ft. The radio is connected to a TX/RX bandpass cavity and is then hooked to a Diawa VHF/UHF diplexer and is then hooked to the antenna with 1/2″ hardline. This digipeater was added to help fill in the Wausau area due to terrain problems that prevent a good signal to/ from the W9SM-2 digipeater at the Hewitt tower.

11/23/08 – Had Pete AB9PJ and Eric KG9GH from the Marinette-Menominee HAT team over to help with tower work at Mosinee Hill. Also had help from Jack N9LIA, Dave N9KNY, Dave KB9PON, Mark N9MEA, Mike KB9DED, and Michael KB9VBR. Thanks to everyone that helped.

11/26/08 – Got the final antenna line work done today and put the digipeater on the air. I still need to do a couple of items for mounting the radio equipment, but when I do that, it shouldn’t be off the air very long.

Winlink 2000 Airmail

12/1/08 – Installed a cabinet and remounted the radio and TNC into the cabinet and installed a different power supply. Installed polyphasers on the coax and grounded everything.

5/15/09 – Winlink digi hasn’t worked for about a week. Found interference on the radio. Turned squelch up to get rid of it. Need to come back to the site with a computer to reprogram the radio for oscillator shift.

5/19/09 – Reprogrammed GE MDX for Oscillator shift to get rid of interference in radio.

Winlink 2000

10/12/09 – The digi has not been showing up on the APRS map for a couple of days. Looked over the digipeater and everything looks fine. Reset the TNC just in case that was the problem.

10/15/09 – Have been watching the packets from the digipeaters and everything looks good here. The packets always decode here, but not always at the RMS node. I will have to talk to Travis about it.

10/17/09 – Talked to Travis today and he looked over the RMS node. He said the antenna and coax are OK so he reset the TNC and rebooted the computer. The position packets appear to be working correctly. However, Travis mentioned that he was having a problem with either the RMS node or W9NA-2 digi not working intermittently when trying to send traffic. We will have to try to look into this problem.

For more information on Winlink 2000, checkout these documents.