Winlink users please read

[Roberto]

Hello,
I suppose among the forumites there is a number of people using Winlink / email via amateur bands ssb radio.
Please take a minute to read the Winlink development team plea for help in a petition to the FCC (the US regulatory body for telecomms). There is the risk that regulations might lead to the whole US hams not participting any more in Winlink, given their involvment this might well mean the whole disappearance of the system.
Details here
https://winlink.org/FCC_Action

More directly, apply here
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/fil...dings_name=16-239&sort=date_disseminated,DESC
Left column, top box, click "+Express", write your name and press enter to make the field become yellow, then in the comment box "I endorse the ARSFI position". That s all.

thanks
r

 

[GHA]

Hello,
I suppose among the forumites there is a number of people using Winlink / email via amateur bands ssb radio.
Please take a minute to read the Winlink development team plea for help in a petition to the FCC (the US regulatory body for telecomms). There is the risk that regulations might lead to the whole US hams not participting any more in Winlink, given their involvment this might well mean the whole disappearance of the system.
Details here
https://winlink.org/FCC_Action

More directly, apply here
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/fil...dings_name=16-239&sort=date_disseminated,DESC
Left column, top box, click "+Express", write your name and press enter to make the field become yellow, then in the comment box "I endorse the ARSFI position". That s all.

thanks
r

Sent.

Well done for posting the info, it would be a great loss if winlink went down, not just for sailors, maybe more so for the vital role it plays in disaster relief when all normal comms is down. Fingers crossed this won't come to anything.

 

[GHA]

Not out of the woods yet unfortunately..

https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2019/04/05/amateur_radio_spectrum/

 

[Bilgediver]

Is one of the issues the USA resisting the use of pactor by advising all modes must use open source software which is freely available. Many Winlink stations operate on pactor as well as the slower Winlink software defined TNC and Pactor is a propriety system.

 

[GHA]

Looks like winlink are making anefort anyway, 21 days messages from US stations available online..
https://winlink.org/content/us_amateur_radio_message_viewer

Might help, but if it doesn't.......

Is it possible to get the LRC without spending a load of money and having to be in the uk for a few days to do the course, which I'm guessing will be well below the technical level of advanced ham.

Suspect i know the answer already.

 

[Roberto]

Update
Winlink developers have applied the third party rule in full: from now on (well, a few days ago), US land stations will allow to exchange emails only to stations whose licensing country has a tjird party agreement with the US, the list is here:
http://www.arrl.org/third-party-operating-agreements
Note the UK is only for GB- callsigns, not G- or M- prefixes.

What this means: a UK (and most Europeans) licensed ham will be able to exchange emails (that is gribs, bulletins, position reports, messages to family etc) only when making the connection through a non-US land station. A connection with a US station will receive an automatic reply saying it is not allowed.
In practical terms, the eastern Atlantic is well covered by European stations, the Caribbean too with several stations in Central America, for a transat there will be Canadian stations (especially Neil VE1YZ "monster" station which I used from south Brazil to the Azores).