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and aside from APRS (Primarily a position-reporting protocol that runs over packet as a L2 transport) there's practically no use of packet radio at all any more.

Winlink is in use in a lot of places.

high-speed operation still means 1200bps.

Actually, high-speed packet is 9600, but it cannot be used below 220. Standard packet is 1200.

Incorrect. Packet radio is alive, well, and thriving, especially in applications where Internet access is severely limited or completely absent. The prima facie example of this is Winlink, which is popular both with operators who provide emergency communication in disaster areas, and with sailors on small vessels (where the method is better known as Sailmail).

That said, while an interesting experiment, it's likely that the transaction described in the OP violated FCC Rules. See 47 CFR 97.113(a)(2):

No amateur station shall transmit: ...Communications for hire or for material compensation, direct or indirect, paid or promised, except as otherwise provided in these rules...

I've been a licensed amateur radio operator for over 30 years.

No, not that one, that's gateway software. I need client software. These are the available clients:

https://www.winlink.org/Client...

The client software absolutely has to do Winmore and Ardop, and you can see that the only one that does is the Windows software.

Then of course there is the other Windows-only stuff like my Nikon camera utilities, Photoshop Elements, Office 365 (did they make it Linux yet? Maybe... don't want to lose VBA), and so forth.

Since I have a mortally wounded computer from the last Windows update, it's tempting to build a new one an make Linux the base OS and attempt to make everything work through VMs for Windows, (see if I can get Call of Duty and Quake III (yeah, its ancient, but have been playing it about 20 years and have over 200,000 dead bots behind me), and so forth. I just really don't want to end up scripting a shell and wondering why the m-fing regular expression isn't doing what I want it to. Damn, I hated that when I had to do it for work, and it made me appreciate Windows so much more...

Have you looked into https://www.winlink.org/conten...

This Winlink? It looks like there are plenty of options. Even so, slapping it in a vm that you can snapshot and maintain would be way less work then maintaining your behemoth pc.

Do you have their call signs? I'd love to know. Encryption is not legal. If I open a hinternet, I cannot encrypt it.

Are you in the US? If so, yes, you can. You are not encrypting it for the purposes of obfuscating the meaning.

"If these changes allow ham radio in the UK to increase in usage,

That says neither that it is needed nor that it was intended for that purpose.

give me the citations then.

Here. While it includes an HF component, the local transport is almost exclusively via packet.

Tell me exactly why it is not possible to incorporate Amateur radio into hospital emergency communications plans without encryption?

Because the hospitals are eventually going to ask for it.

Has sent health and welfare.

"Health and welfare" is not medical information covered by HIPAA.

One of the first problems that happens, is a paid employee is no longer a volunteer. They can be of course, but their use is limited via amateur radio.

You've already lost that battle. You should keep up with the changes to the regulations.

but I should let you know I am a technical adviser to our local group. So I'm not completely ignorant of emergency amateur radio communications.

Well, I dunno. You've said a lot of things that are wrong. They may have been correct in the past, but times have changed. Just your statement that "encryption is not legal", for starters. Your ignorance of Winlink. That you think there is some limit on government employee's use of ham radio. And that you seem to think that "health and welfare" traffic is what HIPAA is about.

Sailmail is all right, and certainly better than nothing. For most purposes, Winlink 2000 is better; the ground stations are less crowded and you can connect for longer periods of time, plus most of them support faster PACTOR connections. You do need a HAM licence high enough to use the HF bands (so, General class), and of course a compatible radio and modem (get something capable of PACTOR3, unless they've introduced a newer, better variant). You also can't legally use HAM radio (and thus, can't use Winlink) to discuss business, so if you expect to need that, Sailmail might be better. For most cruisers that's no problem, though.

I'm not going to recommend radio gear - the boat I lived on uses an Icom 706mk2g, which is a great little 100W radio aside from needing an external tuner, but that was some 11 years ago. Antennas bear thinking about though. Random wire actually works fine, so long as you get it high enough, have a good enough antenna tuner, and a good enough ground. Dipoles work better, but only for specific bands; you'll want to think carefully about that. Directional antennas are generally poinless on a sailboat; even if you can mount one, you can't keep it pointed the right way.

Also, consider the radio environment. Any RF sources on the boat, such as alternators (engine, generator, windcharger, etc.) or DC-DC voltage-converters (such as for solar panels or a laptop charger) are going to play havoc with your reception for either voice or data. You can get RF-insulated DC voltage converters suitable for use with a laptop online, though. You'll also need a good set of ferrite chokes; most consumer electronics either have insufficient chokes or none at all. This will result in those electronics going crazy (mouse dancing all over the screen and clicking random things, for example) if you key a powerful HF radio nearby.

http://www.winlink.org/WINMOR and a HF radio ( and a license if you dont already have one ).

If you're worried about privacy, with packet you can encrypt the data payload itself so long as the headers are not obfuscated and the transmission is properly identified.

Incorrect. Any use of ciphers or codes to obscure the meaning is prohibited, with the limited exception of control signals for space stations (47CFR97.113(a)(4)). That includes the bodies of packets sent via packet radio. That's the US law, perhaps you are referring to a different country?

Current software in common use compresses the bodies of email messages sent via packet and pactor systems, but software can be used to decompress the messages and is thus not considered encryption.

NOW, the rule explicitly defines the "mode" as "1A0", and explicitly says it has to be "plain text". It doesn't quite go as far as stipulating morse code, but I think I read a non-binding FCC opinion someplace where they basically said occasional adhoc prosigns are OK as long as they're published SOMEWHERE and your intent isn't to conceal what you're sending, but hex-encoded UTF8 and any kind of binary-encoded file is absolutely beyond the pale.

You are quite incorrect.

In the definitions: (1) CW. International Morse code telegraphy emissions having designators with A, C, H, J or R as the first symbol; 1 as the second symbol; A or B as the third symbol; and emissions J2A and J2B.

Nowhere does it say it has to be "plain text". There are restrictions on the code used (International Morse Code, 5 level Baudot, etc...), and restrictions on the content, but "plain text" is not one of them. Perhaps you are thinking of 97.113(a)(4) which prohibits: "(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification; "?

UUencoding is not an encoding for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of a message. If you encrypted those files before uuencoding, then you would be breaking the rules, but otherwise, no.

As for sending binary files being "beyond the pale", sorry, still incorrect. There is an international network of packet and pactor based systems that do this on a regular basis, using an encoding that is much more obscure and complex than UUencoding. It's called Winlink 2000. It is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of email to ham radio, and you can send doc and pdf and all kinds of binary files as attachments to those email messages. There is no FCC rule prohibiting this.

As for your recollection of the old rules, I recall nothing that would have been a hot-button issue for the FCC in sending files via computer-generated CW, as long as the control op was sitting there controlling it.

In a way, I can see why they clamped down a bit. At the time I didn't have the RF or digital electronics background to know it, but I now know that turning a carrier on and off is neither instantaneous nor consequence-free, and when you do it fast enough, you're basically bit-banging de-facto AM via PWM and square-wave artifacts that's going to splatter over a MUCH wider chunk of spectrum than a carrier being slowly turned on and off by a straight key.

What you call "splatter" is what we technical people call "bandwidth". Yes, a 200 wpm CW signal has a higher bandwidth than a 10 wpm signal, but I don't seem to find any limit to the CW speed being used. I do find a limit of 300 bauds for data, but I don't believe that applies to CW. There were, and probably still are, people who manage 60 to 80 wpm manually. There is a woman who has a record more than 1700 wpm using software.

As for how fast the carrier is turned on and off, that is a function of the TR switching in the transmitter. You can have bad key clicks at 5 wpm, too.

In that case though I think the simple truth is that it's not a viable goal. Existing solutions are EXPENSIVE, slow, and of a reliability unsuitable for telecommuting. Sailing around the world is not something you can sensibly do while working at this point in time. It's for people who don't have to work (ie, rich kids or retirees) or people who can stop working long enough to enjoy it without being connected 24/7 (people on vacation).

However much you make, if you're still working for a living, then give up on working from the middle of the Atlantic (well, as anything but a sailor or a fisherman).

That said, if e-mail (rather than full web access) is good enough for you, you can get that relatively inexpensively with HAM radio http://www.winlink.org/.

Much depends on where you are going to be, exactly what access you want, and how much you are willing to pay.

Long distance cruisers generally go for SSB-based email (either Sailmail or Winlink) because it's cheap and relatively reliable. Of course, "reliable" in this context means that depending on the HF propagation conditions you can probably get an email message out sometime that day. And you are limited to short, text-only messages. Still, these days you can update blogs, Facebook, etc. via email...

Other systems like Ocens are also available for email via Iridium.

After that, if you are offshore and away from GSM coverage, you start talking about real bucks. Inmarsat is the most common. Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar, etc. all pretty much have two things in common - they are slow compared to land-based systems and they bill by the bit.. a lot. Streaming video and surfing Spring Break Girls Gone Wild is probably not in the cards. Hell, even checking a webmail email account is not really feasible unless you are Carlos Slim and own a telephone company.

So, that's a long way of getting around to saying this: In the past 10 years, not a lot has changed. Inshore, close to cell coverage, you can do very well. Offshore, you are still pretty much stuck with the same old systems that were in place 10 years ago, only now they are more expensive. Oh, and in the case of Globalstar, they are also less reliable now.

Well, you could get your Amateur Radio license, then you could use Winlink 2000 to send and receive emails while at sea.

http://www.winlink.org/

Of course, I personally despise Winlink 2000, because of the robots that never listen to see if other stations are transmitting, before they transmit, but that's just my personal opinion.

Winlink is just a message transport that can run over packet radio, tcp/ip, etc. It speaks B2F which has been around for a long time and is more open than D-STAR's proprietary codec but more importantly, is not a l2/l3 transport...

So how does Winlink 2000, a digital protocol (using a patented codec, too, I think) that supplies email service over the amateur shortwave bands, escape notice? It's a lot harder to communicate a significant distance at the VHF and UHF ranges typically used by D-Star than the HF bands used by Winlink systems.

The ways of bureaucracies are often mysterious.

Get hamradio operator with multimode HF trx and Pactor modem. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACTOR and http://www.winlink.org/ Working email at any place.

Here in Canada amateur radio is a integral part of almost every city/town. Many radio clubs/societies receive grants from municipal and provincial government bodies to purchase gear, train new members,etc.

A good 1/3 of our members now are under 30. With such a young crew we can invest in and easily learn cutting edge technology to further assist the population in a time of need. We actually run asterisk based voip, video conferencing, instant messaging and of course email between our EOC's (emergency operation centres). Connectivity is done by way of 11Mbps wireless data on the 2.4ghz amateur radio band (non-802.11). We also make use of low speed packet based systems on VHF/UHF for your basic email (winlink: http://www.winlink.org/ ) and message handling.

Anyone remember packet radio? Packet Radio predates richochet by at least 10 years.

Packet radio, however, is hardly dead -- yeah, it's not exactly impressive to tell people "hey, I'm on the internet...over a radio" anymore, but there are still a lot of people doing some very impressive mobile stuff with APRS on VHF, or long-distance connectivity over HF.

Not long ago I went to a lecture by a ham who had spent some time down in Central America building an email system based on packet radio for some humanitarian workers down there. It was a pretty neat system -- VHF connections for the local links, and then an HF connection for the long haul back to the 'States. Given that the previous system had involved writing down messages and handing them to a ham operator to transmit via CW or SSB voice, even a few hundred baud (transmitting 24/7) was a pretty dramatic step up.

Only thing I didn't like about the system is that the software is all very Windows-centric, and some of the protocols they want to use are proprietary and/or patented (which I think is anathema to the entire concept of Amateur Radio and ought to be prohibited generally), sometimes requiring very expensive hardware modems. Not cool.

But anyway, if you haven't looked into packet in a while, and this goes not only for current hams but also anyone generally interested in computers or communications, it's definitely worth a look. Amateur radio in general is in the midst of a transition, where a lot of the people more resistant to change are dying off, and there's a lot of room for software hackers to get in on the ground floor and do some neat stuff.

The one thing that concerns me about this whole "wireless e-mail" patent business is that this basic functionality has been available in the amateur radio community for DECADES. Packet radio was pioneering in 1978 by hams in Montreal, Canada. Hams established "wireless" BBS systems through the 1980's, which provided an e-mail like feature via the message board. Further with the rise of the Internet hams have provided e-mail over the amateur radio bands; i.e. wireless e-mail. Perhap's I'm missing something, but this appears to be a pretty compelling prior art arguement. http://www.tapr.org/history.html http://www.winlink.org/History.htm

Being one of those that has participated in communications for a disaster relief effort, I have seen some of the work hams do from being there. Some of the things they are doing are not done well by the military. The military has some communcations equipment, but they don't have the flexibility to communicate with many of the other law enforcement / relief groups. There are many efforts going on now on the ham bands to assist in the relief effort. One you might find interesting is a http://www.boatwatchnet.org/. If you want the spread sheet short story on the status of many of the boats in the area, you can find that from a link at http://www.winlink.org/ The hams had most of the status on those boats posted several days ago. Many hams were busy on the Winlink system passing various messages about the status of people and relief needs almost from the time the quake was felt. If you wonder what hams do in a disaster, ask someone that is a ham, or someone in the Red Cross that handles communications. You will find there is much more going on than is ever mentioned in the press.

There are some very good ham digital modes suited to the high-frequency bands where l;ong distance communication is possible via reflection from the ionosphere. PSK31 works well for keyboard-to-keyboard use. Of particular note here is a system known as winlink (yes it is windows based). It is specifically designed for text email communications to and from remote locations where other communciations infrastructure does not exist or is extremely expensive.

A good reference to winlink is http://www.winlink.org/ . The status of winlink stations in tsunami affected areas is given at http://www.bur.st/~philsuth/tsunami_status.html

On the satellite side, there is exactly one product on the market. I don't remember the name or mfgr, but you can find them in any boating gear catalog. This is a small, self-contained unit with a small keyboard and LCD display. They go for about a grand, plus you need to subscribe to service and pay per message. Not cheap, but I hear they work quite well.

The other, and much more common, option is HF/SSB/Marine Radio. Any ocean-going vessel will (or should) have a SSB radio, although you need a fairly decent radio and a good antenna for data use. If you have a General (or better) class amateur radio license, then your choice is simple: WinLink 2000 http://winlink.org/k4cjx/ is pretty much the defacto standard for amateur radio internet email. Yes, the software runs under 'doze, but it is free, and the service is also free, run by fellow ham operators.

If you do not have a General Class license and are operating on Marine SSB frequency bands, there are a number of commercial solutions that work just the same as WinLink. Unfortunately, they are not cheap, and none of them provide service any where near as good as the amateur WinLink setup.

In either case, (Marine/commercial or Amateur/Ham) you will need a radio modem to sit in-between your laptop and your radio. Which one you get will be determined by which service you use. If you go with a commercial provider, they will tell you what unit to use. If you use WinLink, there are many more options, all well documented on k4cjx's web site.

Also, if you are serious about this, I *highly* recomend that you take at least two laptops with you and that someone on board knows how to re-install both of them. Yes, your laptop will get fried, so make sure that you have an extended service policy on it! Why? I guarantee that someone will start the engine, start the anchor windless, or kick in the wind generator while the laptop is plugged in, sending a nasty spike through the electrical system and frying your laptop, or at the very least scrambling memory and corrupting the disk. Keying up 1KW on your HF radio can also do nasty things to your laptop as well.

BTW, I spent nine months as a live-aboard in the carribean, so I know all these issues only too well. If anyone wants more info, I'd be happy to provice all the gory details...

-p.