Winmor Anybody?

[Forrest15112]

Does anyone use the Winmor program for SSB email? If you're not familiar, Winmor is a soundcard digital mode produced by the Winlink2k people. It's free and therefore should appeal to tightwad hams the world over.

I have a few old 12 channel Motorola Micom radios and was thinking about putting one or two on the air for local emergency comms and anyone else who's interested. These radios are built like tanks and it would be a shame to not make some use out of them. I've run a Winlink2k RMS gateway on 2 meters for a few years after Katrina and am getting that back on the air soon. They claim Winmor has data throughput speeds that approach Pactor II. I'm just curious if anyone here uses it and what kind of results have you had.

 

[windward54]

I haven't tried it, but I thought you had to pay for the Winmor licensing fee to use it?

 

[Forrest15112]

Definitely no fees required. I am downloading the user version to try out and see if it's worth pursuing. I have 4 of the HF radios (80, 40, 30, & 20 meters) I described and they are taking up too much space in my shack. They're over 100 watts output and were used for HF packet at one time. I thought a winlink gateway would be nice use for them since they have the 100% duty cycle transmitter. I was a little worried about the stability (frequency-wise) of these older radios and was assurred by freind who is familiar with them that they're some of the best older conversion radios for data because they are so stable. I've also got 2m and 70cm mitrek consolettes that are also currently collecting dust. I've got the two meter radio up and running, just need to tweak it and it will be ready to setup. I hope to do that this weekend between other things. At the least, I'm having a blast working on these older radios and hope to make some good use out of them. 73

 

[windward54]

Are you sure? I copied this from the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation's website:

WINMOR

WINMOR is an HF radio transmission protocol for the Winlink 2000 system. WINMOR was introduced at the 2008 ARRL / TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago. Unlike PACTOR, only a simple computer soundcard-to-radio interface is required, and it will run as a "virtual TNC" with Paclink and RMS software. Additional information about WINMOR can be found on the Winlink web site.

The WINMOR protocol was developed by Rick Muething, KN6KB and Victor Poor, W5SMM.
Registration

Registration provides you license to use the WINMOR virtual TNC with your callsign alone or with any SSID (1-15) on multiple computers or multiple instances on the same computer. This license is not transferable and can only be used with the callsign originally used for registration. Complete license informaiton can be found in the license.txt file included with WINMOR. Consult the documentation for your particular application for details on how to apply the WINMOR registration key.

Your registration donation helps fund further WINMOR development and other projects sponsored by the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation.

The registration donation for WINMOR is $39.00.

Please enter your name and callsign below (being sure to enter your Amateur, MARS, or UK Cadet callsign correctly as the registration key applies to the entered callsign only). Then, press the "Register Using PayPal" button to be transferred to the PayPal secure web site where you can make your payment using your PayPal account or any major credit card.

After your payment is complete be sure to return here to obtain your WINMOR registration key. There will be a link on the final PayPal page that will bring you back if you are not automatically redirected. If you have problems obtaining your registration key send a message with your transaction details to winmor@arsfi.org.

 

[Forrest15112]

I looked this up on my version of RMS Express.

Registration of RMS Express is not required. The WINMOR TNC virtual TNC used by RMS Express is "nagware," that is, it pops up a reminder to register the software with a donation to the non-profit ARSFI. When registered the program no longer pops up the guilt-instilling reminder. The WINMOR TNC program will operate unencumbered and is not limited if operated unregistered.

If I'd spent some time getting it setup, I probably would have notice the "nagware". I'm going to try to make a connection this week if I get the time to mess with it. If all goes well, I may send them a donation.

 

[windward54]

Nice to know! I'll have to give it a try. Thanks for the head's up and correction. Let me know how it goes.

 

[Forrest15112]

I've finally got around to setting up RMS Express on my station. It's very easy if you already use any of the soundcard modes like PSK31. In that case, it's just loading the program and some simple configurtion. I made a mistake at first ( thinkining I know everything and not reading the manual), I was entering the center frequency as the dial frequency and was subsequently 1500Hz off when I was trying to make a connection. Once I figured that out, I easily connected to 5 or 6 gateways and sent test emails. The speed is fine for text only. I sent a 20kb attachment and that, took a while. To be fair, it was around dusk and the 40 meter band was starting to get noisy.

I'm going to play around with it some more before I attempt to setup my old commercial radios, but so far it looks good. I'd recommend anyone who pays for HF email to look into getting licensed(easy, even for non-technical people) and using PACTOR II & III and/or Winmor via Winlink2000.