Here's a picture of just one of several Target Stations in the MDC Digital EMCOMM Challenge on Sunday, 11 May . Participation is not limited regionally, but all Target Stations are in the Maryland, District of Columbia area. Image transfers are often surprisingly fast, as long as a 5 minute wait time isn't too much for you. We will be doing another image transfer exercise next month, 5-8 June. K

I didn't see a reason to choose Advanced beacons when using VARA FM,anyway. Since Standard beacons work, we don't have much of an issue. I'm sure you can clear up the confusion.

I decided to leave the beacon setting at Standard on FM, based on the description provided. I just changed it to Advanced beacon and the results "look" the same. DE N3XL VIA N3XL-10 WA3YOO-9

Actually, although operating in Advanced mode, the beacon does show up in the datastream, but as Irad has posted, it probably goes nowhere. DE N3XL VIA N3XL-10 WA3YOO-9

Andy - I saw something in the manual like that, but my assigned digipeaters are recognized. The local hop shows in the Beacons box and both hops show up in the ADVANCED broadcast. 73 Bill N3XL

Thanks Meir. I assume that instruction will show up in the 11.2 manual. Anyway. we'll see if things work better this Wednesday.

My apologies to AI3KS and K3JSJ. I did not have the check-box for "Auto Vmail to Email gateway relay" checked. I made a connection to K8SRR this evening and all traffic in my Parked Vmail box has been relayed. Bill N3XL

Mark, I see that the KJSJ and AI3KS check-in messages are in my Parking mailbox. The Gateways test successfully, so this seems to be a bug. Bill N3XL

It appears that several check-ins have been lost in the ether. Bill N3XL 30/04/2025 22:45:47 - K3JSJ> 30/04/2025 22:46:03 - N3XL> 30/04/2025 13:06:46 - AI3KS> 30/04/2025 13:08:34 - N3XL> 30/04/2025 11:53:21 - CONNECTED TO WD4U (BANDWIDTH: 500 FREQUENCY: 7.105.000) 30/04/2025 11:53:35 - WD4U> de WD4U 30/04/2025 11:53:40 - THIS STATION SERVES ALSO AS AN EMAIL GATEWAY. 30/04/2025 11:53:54 - N3XL> 30/04/2025 11:54:21 - N3XL> de N3XL 30/04/2025 11:54:27 - WD4U> 30/04/2025 11:54:27 - VMAIL DELIVERED SUCCESSFULLY 30/04/2025 11:54:37 - WD4U> 30/04/2025 11:54:37 - EMAIL WAS SENT SUCCESSFULLY

1. HF and Vara FM profiles set up. 2. Vara FM profile selected. 3. HF profile run by running from the original shortcut vs switching profiles, so both are running. 4. HF broadcast made. This triggers the "Incoming connection request - still don't know who that is" message instead of broadcasting. 5. If switching back and forth between profiles, all threads are closed in the "sister" profile and there is no problem. So, this is just something to watch out for, as a separate VarAC FM session being run from its own shortcut supports running both instances simultaneously with no problem.

This only occurs when running VarAC HF and VarAC FM simultaneously from the same instance, by selecting the respective profiles.

You could just have everything on the shack computer and control it via remote desktop in your living room or in Canada, or Florida, etc. 73, Bill N3XL

Recently we tried setting up 2 instances of VARA FM for end users as you described with 2 separate folders and using different ports and had problems. The problems may be related to SignaLink's handling of the sound channel, but it won't work. Once VarAC owns the soundcard Winlink messages will not pass. I believe that it may work using a DRA sound interface, because it handles the sound channels differently, but we have not tested DRAs for end user configurations.

You can set the sound levels for the USB AUDIO CODEC Speakers to 100% in the Sound setting in your computer and adjust the ACC/USB AF Output Level in the 7300 to < 40% in Connectors settings. Then run a AutoTune in VARA to adjust drive level. 73, Bill N3XL

PS - Running the HF profile suffices for both ways to do it. In other words, you only need two shortcuts. One that that has the HF and VHF profiles, and one that is VHF only. Then you can do it either way.

I have it set up both ways and there are certain advantages either way. If you run separate instances you can run HF and VHF simultaneously. If you set up profiles, you can switch back and forth between the radios one at a time, with the advantage of having the same mailboxes and same Incoming and Outgoing files directory. 73, Bill N3XL

Actually the character count up to 8 works OK for digipeating. So the problem is actually for digipeating through RMS stations with 9 or more characters, but the same principle applies irt changing the SSID from 10 to 9 thus saving one character. Sorry if I caused a bunch of confusion with the 7.

Chris, check your PTT configuration. Bill N3XL

Actually, to best answer your question you can add 7.103.200 to your Frequency Dropdown list in settings with an edit.