In response to request for numbers .. here they
are... most can be found with some digging at www.winlink.org
Winlink is approximately 75% of
Traffic
Winlink transports approximately 150,000 radio
message or 262,000 Minutes though system, monthly, which is more than all
branches of MARS, the ARRL field organization and CAP combined which send
about 47,000 messages per month. In other words, Winlink transport
approximately 75% of Traffic...
Winlink involves a significant percent of
Active Ham Populations
There are over 7,600 weekly users to over 85,100 ham and non-ham
email recipients. These numbers tend to dwarf even the numbers of
active users we find in contests.
Winlink PMBOs DO NOT INITIATE RF CONNECTIONS
Worldwide,
there are over 63 Participating locations (PMBOs) with 26 active in the
USA. NONE of these stations initiate RF connections, period.
Approximately 15 PMBO's are not published and are on standby,
mostly in either government or civil agencies for emergency
communications. The numbers of standby EMCOMM Winlink PMBOs is
increasing daily as EMCOMM systems switch over to Winlink.
Why is the switch happening?.. Mainly it is driven by our served agencies who
prefer the Email based system for EMCOMM which Winlink provides them to
the significantly less user friendly systems we had in the past.
Winlink Uses Bandwidth Efficiently
Approximately 90 percent of the HF connections have a duration of less
than 5 minutes.
There is an average of a 2.1 minute
delivery time from origination to participating station for
Pickup. Winlink uses 262,000 minutes per month of airtime.
or 8700 minutes per day or 363 minutes per hour or
equivalent of 6 fully SSB dedicated channels or about 18 KHz to send 3
times more traffic in significantly less bandwidth than MARS, NTS and CAP
combined. I have not added up all the HF bandwidth available to hams but
18 KHz is clearly a small proportion of the total available...
Winlink is Growing
There are over 600 active VHF/UHF Telpac nodes in operation, many in
County agencies.
There are multiple access points to include HF radio
access, VHF/UHF radio access, Telnet Access, WEB Browser Access.
Enhanced, more flexible & redundant network topology currently in
beta testing with even less Internet dependency.
Why is it growing so rapidly in the ham community.. Well clearly it
works, it is simple to use and most important it clearly fills a need that was
there.
Winlink Works EVERY DAY in Disasters and EMCOMM
Last year, participation in disaster communications included the
communications during and after the major hurricanes in the Bahamas,
Florida, Grenada and many other locations in the effected areas, to include
such severe weather in Chile and Peru.
Last year, participation in
disaster communications included the Tsunami relief effort over a very wide
area. Emergency participating stations were set up in Australia and are now
being deployed in India. The Tsunami disaster relief efforts are still
going on today and Winlink carries significant traffic.
Last year,
there were communications with over 27 life critical rescues, including
several with the Boatwatch network, US Coast Guard, and other such agencies
from other governments. There were many more less than critical health
and welfare messages delivered.
This year, emergency communications
continues with the failure of INTELSAT 804, which still isolates all but the
largest island communications systems in the Pacific. Winlink plays a
major role here every day.
What other Ham System gets so much EMCOMM Traffic Every Day?
Winlink Haters:
There are a few Winlink Haters.. ... these appear to a very tiny but
rather vocal minority... who seem to have a lot of time to spend on
reflectors... As one who is involved in EMCOMM, I really wish they would focus
some of that energy on something positive such as improving EMCOMM
systems .. instead of being negative all the time...
The obvious success of Winlink with the rapidly growing numbers of
Winlink users and the demand for deployment from Served Agencies for EMCOMM
clearly puts the hatred in perspective.
__________________________________________________________
Howard S.
White Ph.D. P. Eng., VE3GFW/K6 ex-AE6SM KY6LA
"No Good Deed
Goes Unpunished"
Formerly "Awfully Extremely Six Sado Masochist"
"Krazy
Yankee Six Loves America"
Website:
www.ky6la.com
The
K3UK DIGITAL MODES SPOTTING CLUSTER AT
telnet://208.15.25.196/
The K3UK DIGITAL MODES SPOTTING CLUSTER AT telnet://208.15.25.196/
Yahoo! Groups Links
