Altough EMAILTV works in APRS, is NOT a digipeater.
EMAILTV is a gateway of APRS messages to Internet, which allows the operating users in APRS on the frequency of 144.800 Mhz to be able to send, through APRS messages, some short e-mail via Internet .
This can be useful for mobile stations (e.g. using a TH-D7) or stations that don't have an internet connection.
Furthermore through internet, from a html suitable page, it is possible to send APRS messages to local users who work on the frequency of 144.800 Mhz.
At last, EMAILTV elaborates some additional diffusion services, explained in a suitable paragraph below in this document.
Thanks to the big help of iw3grx Paolo and ik3umt Federico.
Operationally, in Treviso a VHF port in 144.800 Mhz connected to the ham server ir3ip (which is also an email server) has been installed.
An operating program connected via TCP to ir3ip APRS server analyzes all the traffic of the VHF port, and if an APRS message addressed to EMAILTV or IK3SVW call and formatted in a certain way (explained below) is received, it sends an ack via APRS, and sends via Internet, through ir3ip, an email to the address and with the text specified in the APRS message.
Furthermore there is a html page which allows to send an APRS message to a user listened on the VHF port.
As you can understand, to be able taking advantage of this service is necessary to follow simple but as much strict rules:
- Obviously, you should receive on 144.800 Mhz the EMAILTV beacon APRS (located in Treviso).
In fact, if you don't receive the beacon is possible that the service is deactivated or that the beacon doesn't reach yr. zone, therefore trying to use EMAILTV is useless !
- Make sure to be able to send standard APRS messages. This means that quietly using the TH-D7/D700 or WinAPRS is possibilie, but for UI-VIEW having checked the "Default message type APRS" is necessary on the menu Setup>APRS Compatibility.
- To send a short email, send an APRS standard message to EMAILTV or IK3SVW, in the format <addr> <msg>. Starting from the first character, you must type in:
- Address you of electronic mail of the addressee, without spaces. (example: alpha@beta.com). One email address is admitted.
- Afterwards to the email address you must type in a space (ASCII 32).
- At last, after the space you can write the content (4 character minimum) of the email which you want to send.
Mind that as from APRS standard the length of the whole message (email address, space and text of the email) must not exceed 67 characters.
An example of as a message sent to EMAILTV by IK3ABC who wants to send to alpha@beta.com an email "hi hi", should appear on the window monitor like:
IK3ABC>APRS,WIDE3-3:
:EMAILTV :alpha@beta.com hi hi{06
or
IK3ABC>APRS,WIDE3-3:
:IK3SVW :alpha@beta.com hi hi{06
- Once sent the message, if it really has been received, EMAILTV will send you an ack (as for the APRS standard messages).
Soon after, yours msg is checked and if it turns out correct, is really queued to the email system, and an APRS message like "Msg to alpha@beta.com queued" is furthermore sent to you (doesn't on your side need ack) .
If everything is OK briefly an email will be really sent from aprs@ir3ip.net which has as subject "APRS message from" and your APRS call, and has as text what you've written on the APRS message.
- Also the possibility of being sent from APRS of a SMS exists, but main tlc companies have cut services, so freely sending SMS to any mobile phone isn't possible any more.
In experimental way, EMAILTV can send SMS using the same syntax seen above for the e-mail, putting in the place of the e-mail address an itailan mobile phone number, which must be OMINTEL and without the initial +39, but with the limitation that SMS will be addressed to omintel mobiles only and that isn't possible to send more than 10 SMS at the day, therefore this service is scantily usable.
We hope in better times ...
Remember! The e-mail sent by EMAILTV have the APRS sender in the e-mail body.
So you can't reply to the email itself if you want to
reply to APRS sender, beacuse in this way you will send
an email to EMAILTV, not to the real APRS sender!
To send via internet an APRS message to the real sender
that used EMAILTV, there are 2 ways:
- Obviously, it is possible to connect the aprs server ir3ip.net:10153 with your favourite APRS program, so you can try to send a message to the station.
- Otherwise, it is possiblee to use an html page of EMAILTV service, in wich you choose the station in the last heard list and try to send him a message.This procedure is explained below:
Sending from a ir3ip web page an APRS message through the local VHF port (placed in Treviso) to a user listened in the last time is possible:
- Go in internet on the http://www.ir3ip.net/ik3svw/localmsg.html page
- You'll have to insert above all yr. call. It's compulsory.
- You can then choose to who to send a message through the VHF port choosing on the list that shows the heard calls that have messaging capability and at what time they were heard; to make the search easier you can go on the "Search" box more to right, and insert the first characters of the call to be searched. As you'll insert the characters, on the left will appear a call which begins for those characters.
- You must not be worried about inserting a list of digipeaters to reach the wished call. The list that you see in the html page is the path really listened in VHF (or TCP).
Then you can type in the text of the message (not more than 56 characters), and press the button "Send Message" at last. The text must have at least 4 characters.
A confirm message will appear, just write "yes" and click on the confirm button.
- If it's all OK it will appear an "message queued" answer, and after short time the msg will be really transmitted by the VHF port.
The message will have as sender the EMAILTV call, and the body of the message will have as first word yr. name (which you've inserted on the html page), followed by ">", and the text you've written.
Here an example of as a message sent to IW3GRX by IK3ABC which sends him the message "hi hi from internet", that can appear on the monitor window:
EMAILTV>APRS,TCPIP,IR3CO-5*:
:IW3GRX :IK3ABC>hi hi from internet
Exists a limitation, in fact such a message doesn't ask the ack to the correspondent , therefore from internet you don't have the possibility of knowing whether it really has been received.
EMAILTV really listens on ir3ip TCP port 10153. This means that does not analiyze only local VHF trafic in Treviso, but also the TCP packets from Italy, Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland. So EMAILTV can work packets from users of that Countries connected via TCP or also on 144.800 MHz if retransmitted by APRS servers in that areas.
Exploiting the fact that EMAILTV is connected to an E-mail server, were implemented two diffusion services of public usefulness in Italy:
- Receive via Internet of bulletins concerning the noticed seismic events in Italy area issued by the Centro Nazionale Terremoti (INGV), turning every event into an APRS object and sending it in APRS channel. When receiving of a seismic event an APRS bullettin is sent and then an APRS object is formatted comprehensive of geographic position, name of the town next to the event, magnitudo ("M","Mb","Mw","Ml"), depth ("Prof", only if available) and date (UTC) of the event. Such object, shown in map with the "earthquake" symbol and having name SISMAn-gg where n is the progressive number of the event (reset to 1 if seismic events not received within beyond 15 hours) and where gg is the day in which it happened, is transmitted by EMAILTV to APRS channel every 25 min for about 20 next hours at the date of the event.
It is possible to ask EMAILTV (see below) to send the last quake APRS object / bulletin again.
- Receiving of data concerning the Venice tide level forecast, and elaboration of relevant aprs object and possible aprs group bulletins. In practice the received data are turned into an APRS object with icon "gale flag", having MAREA-VE denomination and containing the values foreseen of the tide - current level, maximum and minimum.Also an APRS group bulletin is issued, containing the same data of the APRS object and having BLNnMAREA denomination, where n is the bulletin number received in the day.
An APRS group bulletin is also issued containing the same data of the APRS object and having BLNnMAREA denomination, where n is the bulletin number received in the day. The data is retrieved and transmitted generally once every 3 hours, and it is possible ask EMAILTV (see below) to send the last tide APRS object / bulletin issued again. The data are received by the Centro Previsioni and Segnalazioni Maree of Venice. In case the data of tide exceed the 90 cm or be lower of -55 cm on sea level, an attention condition is activated and the APRS object is renamed to MAREA>>VE, it also changes icon into "flooding" and is transmitted every 25 mins until ceased attention condition.
- Is possible to ask EMAILTV for immediate information, sending an APRS standard message to EMAILTV or IK3SVW of following type:
Furthermore is possible to send EMAILTV or IK3SVW the directed aprs QUERYs like ?APRSx, in detail EMAILTV answers to ?APRSO (Objects), ?APRSP and ?APRSS (Position and Status), ?APRST or ?PING? (Ping).
- ?SISMA to immediately send the the last seismic aprs object and bulletin (if available).
- ?MAREA to immediately send the aprs object and bullettin of forecasts level tide in Venice (if available).
- ?AIUTO or ?HELP to send the simple list of the avaiable commands.
- At last is possible to find the last seismic / tide data through Findu.com, and for this purpose you can try the italian web page of Additional Services that uses Findu.com capability.
EMAILTV is experimental, and can be certainly improved and further developed.
Geneallyl already exists the email via APRS service, by sending a message to the EMAIL call (also for satellites). In our case to identify the local service, a different call from EMAIL, which is EMAILTV or IK3SVW, has been chosen. For the rest, the syntax to send an email is corresponding to the one used for the general service.
For obvious reasons the email / messages service of EMAILTV is limited to only local traffic received by the VHF port and nearby regions, and not to all internet worldwide traffic!
Good APRS!
This text has been drawn up by ik3svw Max (email ik3svw@ir3ip.net) who wrote EMAILTV software.