Rod Mitchell, KL1Y, has written an article for QEX to appear in a Spring 2007 issue. In it he describes how he made a data link from his wireless laptop using 802.11 modulation to HF.
I forwarded some of the topics we have been discussing on this reflector, and here is his response: Hi John, You are correct the Winlink system does send data over HF. In the system that I designed a LAN user sitting at a wireless laptop can connect to the Packlink server and send a message. When the Paclink server establishes the WAN (VHF) connection with the PMBO the data can be sent over the Internet using any of the available connections (DSL, cable, ISDN, T1, etc..) the PMBO may have. If the Internet connections are not available data is sent over HF to the next PMBO in the network with an Internet connection. In the publication I did not address the WAN connectivity beyond stating how the connection is established. My focus was on the LAN segment and establishing connectivity over VHF. We had an actual outage about two months ago. During this outage I did not use the system that I designed. We used another Winlink system. Airmail was used to send email over an HF radio network. This was HF terminal to HF terminal with no 802.11 or VHF originating stations. Our phones were down, the Internet was down and my organization does not own satellite phones. HF and Winlink came through for us. 73, Rod
