I couldn't think of a better subject for this.

I finally finished my efforts on the use of RMS Express and Telnet WL2K tonight.  I had help from Mikes Burton XE2/N6KZB who's retired and lives in Baja, MX.  He's done a lot of work with the folks in the aja and San Diego environs in Mesh development.  Using Teamviewer, he put some effort in fine tuning my RMS Trimode Gateway as a prelude to putting RMS Express/Telnet into use on my Mesh project.

As of tonight, Thursday 1/2, I now have a working message system with RMS Express on my Mesh.  I was able to successfully transfer messages back and forth between two nodes.  My Gateway RMS Relay is sitting on my desktop Acer Aspire and the nodes connected with the RMS Relay IP just fine.

I then threw caution to the wind <GRIN> and sent Mike a message from my W6IDS-002 node and it looks like it was sent just fine.  The connection and transfer on MY end went as usual.  It was sent via Telnet WL2K.  Hopefully, Mike will reply back as requested to confirm success.

RMS Relay will pass the traffic from my mesh to Telnet directly through a selected CMS.  That is, as long as there is a working internet.  Should the Internet crash somewhere that affects MY operation, RMS Relay will handle the message traffic as Radio Only traffic and move it to another RMS Station like mine for entry into the internet and ultimate delivery.  

So far as local users are concerned, using RMS Express allows them to have 24/7 local messaging on the Mesh.  RMS Express can automagically poll Telnet periodically and retrieve any messages that are pending for the user.  That allows the user to be away from his/her station - they don't have to plant themselves at their station to get traffic.  That gives me the local Mesh messaging capability I wanted. PLUS, it gives me the ability to provide a secure message path to Winlink outside of my local area. 

Now, how this all fits into the REAL Wayne County, IN BBHN Mesh - I don't know.  The Mesh doesn't exist yet.  The only Mesh in town is in my home <GRIN>.  Things are a bit vague on the subject. However, I'm plugging along creating these utilities that I like.  They may not be implemented generally, but they're available for use.

Next, I think I need to look into putting up an outside antenna in some fashion so that I can be ready to hit the local hospital where a node may be installed.

BBHN - the "Never Ending Story" and I'm having a ball!

Howard W6IDS

Richmond, IN 

Hey There Darryl! I took this info from the Help file in RMS Relay.

It seems that you CAN run Relay without the full package if you're looking to VHF ops with RMS Packet. As you can see:

RMS Relay is a special program that provides local store and forward message handling, and it makes the station part of the Hybrid Radio Network that forwards messages via radio from RMS to RMS when no Internet access is available to connect to a CMS site. It is normally used in conjunction with one or more instances of RMS Packet or RMS Trimode located on the same computer or local area network.

RMS Packet version 2.0.0.0 or later must be used and will need to be configured using the RMS Packet site properties dialog to access RMS Relay. RMS Trimode must be version 1.2.4.0 or later. RMS Relay can alternatively be set up as a radio only message hub using its own local database. In such a configuration RMS Relay and the supported server are not part of the WL2K system and do not connect to any WL2K CMS.

RMS Relay uses the B2F protocol that supports attachments, multiple addresses and tactical addresses. Now, with that all said, I've got some other insight regarding the newest implementation of the "Post Office" mode. Need to dig that up; I'll post it separately for you. It's a neat option in that is focuses on Node Peer-Peer messaging on a LAN like the Mesh.

Howard W6IDS

OK Darryl, BTW, I still need to figure out how make my paragraphs remain intact. That said, I bet what I'm formatting here is going to appear as one big block. Sorry about that.

Just to clarify, as Mike Burton, xe2/n6kzb has explained in other forums, RMS Relay is the software that acts as the controller for various WinLink products. It is the interface with RMS Packet and RMS Trimode. RMS packet being the gateway for VHF FM users and RMS Trimode for handling the HF venues.

For messaging, the Winlink tools have some incredible features to work with: MPS radio-only (should internet fail over a large regional area) Normal internet delivery HF auto forwarding (should internet fail locally) HF station forwarding selection via Matrix and propagation SySop defined parameters etc etc etc......................

Now, as I said previously, they have added a "Network Post Office" option. It differs from a stand alone radio-only set-up in that it is primarily for LAN use. PLUS, RMS Express has a simple user set-up and interface. Importantly, it also can be set up without prior registration and has nothing to do with Winlink servers - strictly for LAN messaging between nodes.

So, after all of that, the simple answer is YES. You don't need the Trimode - you'd have to set up with authorization to take full use of it. You might look a little deeper into Winlink as a value-added-asset to your own operations. It looks like a good fit for this little mesh I have running and hopefully for the county-wide mesh as it grows.

Howard W6IDS

Ah yes.  the new "Network Post Office" session type. 

Got it.

Loaded RMS Relay tonight and was able to send a message via RMS Express (Network Post Office) session!

Cool stuff.  Now, gotta load it on my server and make it work with Wine. 

Thanks, K5DLQ

Good news Darryl! Good luck with the effort m'man.

Howard W6IDS