That wasn't a deduction on my part -- it is what Steve Waterman told me was going on regarding the rumor that all the developers had shut down their PMBOs. By the way, he called me -- I wasn't soliciting his comments. To your point, I agree with you and my comment was not intended to imply otherwise. Allowing e-mail off the Internet to enter their system without some sort of review is asking for trouble. In an Emcomm scenario, there should be an amateur at the served agency to supervise the system and train the non-hams who might be inputting messages what is and is not permitted. It's the traffic coming the other way that presents a serious control issue (which of course includes spam - 90% of the e-mail I get on andyoppel.com is spam). On top of that, I'm far from convinced that the sending/receiving of routine personal e-mail, as done by all those boaters and RVers is in the best interest of amateur radio. However, my support for Winlink as a tool in the toolbox has always been from an Emcomm perspective. -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO At 01:32 PM 1/26/2008, w3kd@aol.com wrote:

Andy, that is a possibility, but it is not something that can be deduced from the use of the new software. Dan Henderson's source is someone quite familiar with Winlink and I believe that there is more to the issue of the design team's continued or discontinued operation of their own PMBOs than just status printouts. But we will check. In any case, the control issue for PMBOs remains an active concern on the part of the FCC. Cross indicated to me the other day on the phone that only local control of PMBOs, in his view, provides the requisite compliance opportunity.

Having seen examples of the spam that comes through (to W1AW), I agree with him. Steve Waterman's only defense to that is that the recipient of the spam can regulate it. That is not sufficient where the non-ham, spam material can be inserted into the system and transmitted by a licensed Amateur transmitter without any review.

73, Chris W3KD

-----Original Message----- From: Andy Oppel <andy@andyoppel.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 2:14 pm Subject: [arrl-odv:16400] Winlink PMBOs

Recalling the discussion at the annual meeting regarding Winlink PMBOs being shut down, particularly among the Winlink Development Team, I found out today that they are deploying a new generation of their technology, replacing PMBOs with what they call RMS Packet and RMS Pactor. The Winlink website only reports the status of PMBO stations, so those that have been converted to RMS show as "offline". So it appears to me that some folks who birddog Winlink constantly noticed the pattern and attempted to make an issue of it.

73, Andy Oppel, N6AJO Vice Director, Pacific Division American Radio Relay League (ARRL) The National Association for Amateur Radio

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