Message system ... new paradigm?

[Scott Thile (K4SET)]

Hello Bill and all,

>* It's a pain and a hassle to keep a Linux box running.  It 
>takes lots of time and effort.

Finding that out now. Seems like the greatest pain is setting it up and
sorting through all the hardware issues. Reminds me of when I could impress
people with being able to use a computer... only I forgot how much work it
was!

>Here's some things I think Linlink/Linux/xxx can do to contribute.
>
>* Is there a *nix interface for the SCS Pactor III modem?

Yes, there are several. And one that has lots of unrealized potential in my
opinion is the PIB (Pactor to TCP/IP Bridge). The client version comes with
the same "Professional Firmware Package" that gives us Pactor III and works
over a Pactor III connection (will not work on VHF/UHF Packet). With
limitations, the PIB could be a wonderful little tool . Built right into the
firmware (requires a special server version on the server end. The server
version only runs on the PTC-II and IIPro. The client version runs on the
PTC-IIex or the older IIe as well). 

The PIB allows the PTC-II family of modems to emulate a Hayes dial up modem
with the AT command set. This can do everything you need right here. I've
played extensively with it using Windows networking as a shared connection,
and many have used it on a Linux based servers to provide connection like
you would with a dial up modem. Couple of companies offer commercial HF
connections to the internet this way, and I know of some dedicated systems
using it for NPOs. It works but... there are issues to sort through.

The problem is while it eliminates the TCP/IP and PPP overhead from going
over the RF channel, it does nothing with the POP3, SMTP, FTP, and other
protocol overheads. In our testing, POP3 and SMTP works, but the early
handshaking is painfully slow, requiring lots of station switching control
of the connection and contributing to even more overhead. standard POP3 as
it is not suitable for narrow bandwidth like we have on HF.

For more information on the PIB and implementing it with Linux
http://www.scs-ptc.com/download/profi32_eng.pdf
(the PIB is covered under 1.3, page 20).

At one point a guy named Roger Williams was working on a POP3/SMTP server
that would implement a terse switch to optimize it for narrow bandwidth.
Here is my last post from him, 

"Yes, we've observed and understand those behaviors.  Most of that overhead
is actually due to the verbose messages attached to the handshaking messages
generated by the POP3, SMTP, and FTP servers.

We are solving this problem by simple modifications to those standard (open
source) servers so that when they are invoked with a "--terse" flag they
generate short handshaking messages limited to the bare minimums required by
the relevant RFCs.  Naturally, we will fully document and release these
patches to the open source community."

That was November of 2003. Never heard back from him. If anyone wants to
look this up it may be worth pursuing: http://www.coelacanth.com/

We went on to other options for what we were hoping to do with this. It does
work, just not near as well as nice a solution that as those optimized
clients and servers like Airmail, Winlink, UUPlus, etc...

Their are some other open source programs that support the PTC-II family of
TNCs. Here are a few. I hope to play around with some of these at some point
but haven't yet: 

Kptc is a "comfortable user interface" for the PTC using Linux and KDE3.
http://kptc.sourceforge.net/

SCS also lists FBB as supporting the SCS TNCs:
http://www.f6fbb.org/

PTC-II Firmware update utility:
http://www.big-mack.de/esoftware.html

73 and 75, Scott, K4SET, RadioMinistries