EMAILTV for APRS

Operating Instructions (v3.72)

ITALIANO

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:

  1. Address you of electronic mail of the addressee, without spaces. (example: alpha@beta.com). One email address is admitted.
  2. Afterwards to the email address you must type in a space (ASCII 32).
  3. 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


  1. 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.
  2. 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:


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:


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.

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