Winlink is a worldwide radio email system for amateur radio operators, which enables them to send and receive emails, position reports, and other information over radio without the need for internet locally, by connecting to remote gateways that do have access to the internet.
Wayne Technical Fanatics operates Winlink gateways available for use 24/7 365 by the amateur radio community.
KE8LVA Hybrid Gateway
KE8LVA hybrid gateway is available on both HF and VHF. If internet is available, it will operate as a conventional gateway, passing your traffic to the CMS via internet. If internet is not available it will operate in hybrid mode, and will relay your traffic over HF to another gateway which does have internet to pass your traffic to the CMS. To use hybrid mode you would connect in a radio only mode.
Using a hybrid gateway in radio only mode is a very inefficient use of shared bands. This method should only be used in an emergency situation where you have no other means of passing your traffic.
HF Gateway
- The HF Winlink Gateway supports VARA HF wide and narrow, as well as ardop, on 10 meters, 20 meters, 40 meters, and 80 meters. 40 meters is available 24/7 while the other bands are only available certain times of the day.
- The gateway consists of a dedicated Yaesu FT710 and shares the same Lenovo M700 tiny pc as the VHF gateway.
- A Palomar Engineers 80-10 off center fed dipole is used to allow it to band hop on multiple bands using one antenna.
VHF Gateway
- The VHF Winlink Gateway supports VARA FM wide and narrow on 145.78Mhz
- This gateway consists of a Motorola CDM1250 VHF 50 watt radio, Master Communications DRA-36 radio adapter and a lenovo M700 tiny PC.
- This gateway is located about 10 miles west of Wooster, OH. The coverage map is a good representation of expected coverage for a home station.
The HF and VHF gateways both share a dedicated computer. The entire system is powered using an epic PWRgate which allows everything to operate on AC power with a 100AH backup battery which will take over in the event of a power outage. If it is an extended power outage, generator backup is available. Internet is also on an uninterruptable power supply, with Starlink as a backup.
