Cadet Forces' HF Maibox

Apologies, I didn’t mean to be the first (honest!), but this post is just to advise any interested radio users that as well as using PACTOR 1, 2, 3 or 4 the Cadet Forces’s HF Mailbox can now be accessed using a new mode - WINMOR.

The advantages of WINMOR is that it’s a sound card mode (so no PACTOR modem is required) and uses the same sort of PC>Radio interface that you would use for PSK-31, etc.

The software is free (well, apart from a subscribe ‘nag’ screen :slight_smile: and is proving to be much faster than an old PK-232 or KAM box.
For techies, the problem with the radio’s transmit/receive changeover time when using old Clansman equipment with PACTOR (changeover typically <25mS) is not a problem when running WINMOR (changeover <100mS).

If you didn’t know, Cadet Forces’ users of the HF Mailbox can send/receive e-mails to/from any ‘Internet’ address - anywhere in the world - via HF radio.

So will your cadets be the first to ‘Tweet’ using HF radio? Sorry, the first HF SMS ‘texting’ was done a long time ago :wink:

Details of the new mode can be found here The Winlink Book of Knowledge | Winlink Global Radio Email

Currently, there’s a couple of squadrons having a play with it and I can put you in touch with them for help, advice, chat, etc.

Cool.

Now if we could only have a cadet forces satellite internet link I could really have some techie fun when we go out in the field. :slight_smile:

We’ll have a go at that, and soon.

I did buy a PACTOR modem, with the intention of it being for the sqn, but a number of factors have prevented that from being a practical project so far (it wasn’t one of the pro SAIL types that cost £,000s, but it wasn’t cheap).

The original plan was to have Cadets running data modes via a 320, but the plan is now to activate a modified maritime Icom for that.

I hear many good things about Winlink. Having you put me in contact with some of the sqns that are using it could be very useful. So saying, there are some very tech/tac comms types on this forum as well, and we might see a few more posts about this.

wilf_san

Stuff that dreams are made of here.