Radio Based EMail During a Disaster

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Radio Based E-Mail During a Disaster

• Tyler Griffiths
• Cache County Emergency Coordinator
• Ted McArthur AC7II
• Cache County AEC
• Bob Wood WA7MXZ
• Cache County AEC

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What is Emergency Communications?

• Report health and welfare of affected public
• Voice communications among served agencies
  (EOC's, hospitals, shelters, and incident
  command.)
• Site tactical support Incident Command, search
  and rescue, damage and storm reporting.
• Formal, Structured text-based emergency traffic
  handling.

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Why are Digital Text Communications so Important?
Record Tracking

• Need for delivering written procedures, lists,
  graphics, images, and Pre-defined, formatted,
  documents to multiple recipients!
• Multiple recipient e-mail with attachments is the
  de facto standard to carry written information
  using the current IETF (Internet Engineering
  Taskforce) RFC 2821 standard, allowing for binary
  attachments of a reasonable size.
• Hand-written forms take to long to write and are
  very inefficient during an emergency

Consistency
Accuracy
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How Does Winlink 2000 Cater to these Needs?

• It looks like e-mail and uses familiar software
  like Outlook and Outlook Express
• Has an address book and a spell-checker
• Allows multiple recipients (to, cc)
• Sends multiple attachments
• Does NOT add to the stress or learning curve when
  in an emergency situation

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B2F Compression
Compression for a Word or Excel Document
Compression for Text Document
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How Does Winlink 2000 Work?
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO using Winlink 2000
This is a Winlink 2000 PACLINK or AIRMAIL station.
A typical ham radio last mile e-mail station is
composed of simple components, even for an Agency
with multiple computers.
A VHF or UHF Radio and a Good Antenna
A Packet Radio Modem (TNC.)

• Laptop for a Portable Station. Desktop for an
  agency.
• Paclink and your favorite E-mail client
• Or Airmail 2000 software
• Win2000 or WinXP

Laptop Computer
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
To send or receive e-mail, this station makes a
connection with a Winlink radio node or PMBO.
Remote Station
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
For the last mile, use VHF radios and the
Packet mode as a pathway to carry e-mail.
Remote Station
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
For longer distances or in difficult terrain,
most PMBOs are outfitted with multi-band HF
radios and the Pactor II III modes to serve
stations with no other e-mail outlet.
Airmail client Program
Users on HF can only use the program Airmail 2000.
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
The PMBO is connected to the internet at all
times.
Remote Station
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
PMBOs may have remote gateways called TELPAC
stations. They are connected to the PMBO via any
TCP/IP link and duplicate its VHF radio port in
another location.
TELPAC stations may communicate to the PMBO via
any Internet Protocol link, including private
Wide Area Network or WiFi.
Remote Station
802-11b
Remote Station running PACLINK AGW, PACKLINK
POSTOFFICE, OUTLOOK or OUTLOOK EXPRESS AGW
PACKET ENGINE. Or AIRMAIL2000
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
Other computers, or CMSs, organize and manage the
network traffic.
CMSs are transparent to users. They are
redundant, and you never know they are there.
Remote Station
The Internet
CMS
CMS
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
This is how we are set up currently in Cache
Valley
This is the simplest setup one or many Remote
Station(s) and a TELPAC Node connected to Internet
In Cache Valley we are going to put one TELPAC in
Idaho and one in Utah
Remote Station
Remote Station
The Internet
CMS
CMS
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
You can send radio e-mail directly to internet
e-mail users.
Remote Station
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
And you can send radio e-mail to other Paclink or
Airmail stations like yours.
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
Adding a LAN on the PACLINK computer permits
individuals to send and receive radio e-mail.
PACLINK is now an e-mail server.
PACLINK may be placed in the DMZ zone in front
of the firewall.
The Internet
Served Agency LAN
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
The PMBO forwards radio e-mail between its radio
users, even if its internet connection is gone.
This were the ECOMM PMBO comes into play
Remote Station
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
If the local PMBO has an outage, you can make a
connection with a local TELPAC station which will
automatically shift to a distant host PMBO with
connectivity. Or
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
Or you can use an HF station to get to a distant
connected PMBO using Airmail.
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
Besides radio channels, PACLINK stations also may
have telnet channels to the internet. This is
handy for fixed stations because it is fast.
PACLINK stations automatically switch between
preset radio destinations and telnet channels to
find a connection to a PMBO.
My E-mail server is down
The Internet
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E-MAIL VIA HAM RADIO
Or you can traverse the packet network using
nodes to get to a connected TELPAC or PMBO. Or
The Internet
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Utah Packet Network
One network is a lot!
LGU
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Utah APRS Network
But A Completely Redundant Network On the Amateur
Side Gives Even more opportunities!
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Heres a couple of pictures 1st is me my
setup during Katrina running WL2K (sorry for the
ego photo, just what I had) and the 2nd is my new
layout in my truck running WL2K and the third is
a picture of the truck.  Steve, N5AC
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Typical Remote Station for LAST MILE
KB2WF Suitcase Portable station built in to an
aluminum briefcase and runs voice, Telpac,
Paclink, Airmail packet. Has built in batteries
to power a laptop, an Icom208H  KPC9612 for
both 1200 and 9600bps. Has 2 built in voltage
regulators for external power which enters via
Anderson Powerpoles on the left. Antenna SO239 is
at the top of the lid.
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Airmail

• Airmail is compatible with Windows
  95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
• Internal mail client talks directly to TNC
• Less user friendly than Paclink
• Works on VHF/UHF, HF and Telnet

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AIRMAIL inbox
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AIRMAIL Received Message
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AIRMAIL Modules
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AIRMAIL Telnet Module
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Packlink AGW

• Requires Win2000 or higher Microsoft
  .NETFRAMEWORK 1.1
• Runs with Outlook, Outlook Express and other
  email clients
• Very user friendly

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AGW Packet Engine
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Outlook ExpressRunning with Packlink
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Messages come through normal SMTP/POP mail
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Sent Via Packlink TNC VHF TNC Telpac
Telnet CMS Telnet - Mail Client
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Received during the same connection
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Telpac

• VHF/UHF to Internet Gateway
• Requires Win2000 or higher Microsoft
  .NETFRAMEWORK 1.1
• Stand alone
• Should be set up at an EOC or other hardened site
  that is centrally located

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TypicalTelpac Node/Packlink Station
CPU
Radio/TNC/PS
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Telpac Packet to Telnet Gateway
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Packlink AGW and Packlink Postoffice
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Packlink AGW and Outlook Express
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HOW TO GET STARTED

• WINLINK FOR DUMMIES
• http//groups.yahoo.com/group/LOADING_WL2K_USER_PR
  OGRAMS/

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Related Links Additional Information

• Winlink.org
• Winlink.org/status (real-time monitoring of the
  network)
• Winlink.org/features.htm
• Winlink.org/stations.htm (public Winlink
  participating network stations)
• Winlink.org/news.htm (articles publications)
• Winlink.org/client.htm (downloads of client info
  and programs.)
• winlink.org/Emergency.htm
• Related Yahoo Groups
• http//groups.yahoo.com/group/LOADING_WL2K_USER_PR
  OGRAMS/
• http//groups.yahoo.com/group/telpac-paclink/
• http//groups.yahoo.com/group/wl2kemcomm/
• ARRL
• "ARESCOM" Plan to Enhance Emergency Communication
  Capability
• http//www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/07/20/2/?nc
  1
• WinLink 2000--Internet E-mail from Anywhere!
  http//www.arrl.org/tis/info/winlink-2000.html
• Winlink 2000
• http//www.arrl.org/tis/info/winlink.html
  

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Thank You!
Special Thanks For The Original Presentation To
Justin Kates Delaware ARES Section Emergency
Coordinator