Attachments

Any attachment may be used in WL2K radio email - Word processing files, spread sheets, photos, anything you can attach to an e-mail. This would allow formal letters, work sheets, even standardized forms to be used to support a served agency's operations.

One caution is the resulting file size that must be transmitted over the bandwidth-limited ham radio frequencies where the faster internet is not available. This is especially critical when sending photos that can get a little large in file size. The larger the file, the longer it takes to send the e-mail on the radio paths. Once accepted by a TelPac Node the rest of the path is at internet speeds.

To minimize channel usage, it is wise to use Plain Text rather than Rich Text Format (RTF - HTML) formatting where possible. Unless there is a compelling reason (i.e. a standardized form) to use RTF just use Plain Text. With some judicious pre-planning, even a standardized form might be set up as a template file so that all that is needed is plain text that gets re-formatted at the receiving end into the standard form. One neat program for this is Qform, available from http://www.activeham.com (downloads).

This is particularly critical when using 1200b packet on the Local Area Network (single channel). It becomes a major problem during an exercise when several tactical stations may be using the channel at the same time for the incident. Remember packet radio is a time-sharing process on a single frequency. While there may be many packet stations using the same frequency, in reality only one can successfully send or receive data packets at any given slice in time - the rest have to stand by while a single packet burst is going from one station to another. There is a lot of taking turns! The AX.25 protocol takes care of the time-sharing automatically - you do not have to listen first, the DCD/RCV LED on the TNC will keep things organized w/o interference. However, the greater the number of stations trying to use the frequency at the same time, and the larger the files being exchanged, the lower the overall throughput rate for everyone.

This is not an issue with D-Star or WiFi access.

Back to attaching photos . . .

What we need to learn is how to minimize the file size but still retain needed resolution/picture quality. Needless to say - those who plan on using photos will have to be prepared to do some basic photo editing in the field between camera and attaching the file. Microsoft Photo Editor is an excellent tool for this.