[drats_users] E-Mail SMPTE Connection

[Les Rayburn]

Dan,

I'll download the beta and play with it tonight. Thank you for your interest 
in this issue.

D-Stars Comms only recently became a commercial product, so I apologize for 
that bad link.

You're correct that D-Star Comms did not allow you to access your e-mail 
client program such as Outlook, but rather had a simple e-mail form 
implemented inside the software. It sounds like your beta is similar.

The issue of third party access and spam prevention was addressed by 
limiting incoming connections to the RF side. In other words, if your 
stations is acting as a gateway, allowing RF users to send e-mails via your 
station, they were limited to outgoing e-mails only. If you received replies 
that needed to be forwarded back to them, those have to be "accepted" by the 
gateway operator and then forwarded by manually ordering the software to do 
so. Does that make sense?

That way, the "gateway" station that is providing access to TCP/IP is 
basically acting as the gatekeeper. It is NOT an automatic store and forward 
type system. It automatically accepts e-mails from RF users and enters them 
into the TCP/IP stream, but it doesn't work that way with replies.

RF users are basically "trusted" since in theory, no one but hams should be 
using the radios. But e-mails that originate on the Internet side (replies) 
have to be manually approved. A log of all RF traffic received is also kept 
on the software.

Also note, that E-mail attachments are NOT allowed, which I think is a good 
idea. Even small file attachments would take forever to download, and I 
think really limit the usefulness of the tool. Our experiments with D-Star 
COMMS found that the e-mail capability was best suited for "last mile" 
applications or to give some limited e-mail capability to mobile users. 
Think of it more like sending e-mail from your cell phone. Useful, but you 
want to keep messages short and to the point.

But imagine being in say, Galveston, Texas and being able to send an e-mail 
from your ID-800 mobile unit that said something like:

Galveston High School Shelter has immediate need for:

A. 100 bags of ice.
B. 28 additional dinner meals.
C. 11 additional cots and bedding.
D. Vehicle transport for one injured worker for transport to Texas City.
E.  Volunteer to replace inured worker, available for 8AM to 7PM duty shift. 
Male volunteer preferred due to limited housing.

And instead of sending this via a voice circuit and then having it relayed 
to the manager in Texas City, you could e-mail the request directly to him. 
As someone who has sent hundreds of these types of messages by voice, I can 
tell you that it's a god-send.

Looking forward to testing the beta! Thanks again Dan.

73,



Les Rayburn, N1LF
ARES Alabama Section Emergency Coordinator
NCS-SHARES NCS-047
---------------------------------------------
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
(205) 253-4867


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Dan Smith" <dsmith at danplanet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 5:04 PM
To: "Les Rayburn" <les at highnoonfilm.com>
Cc: "Discussion of D-RATS" <drats_users at lists.danplanet.com>
Subject: Re: E-Mail SMPTE Connection

>> The key is making it user friendly. Your wizards are well suited to
>> that. D-Star Comms executes the e-mail function well, so I do suggest
>> looking at their interface.
>
> Your link doesn't seem to work for me, and I don't see anywhere I can
> download the application without paying for it.
>
> Nonetheless, it seems from some of the verbiage on the site that D-STAR
> Comms doesn't allow the end user to use their own email client, but
> rather just send email with the copy of D-STAR Comms they have.  Is that
> right?  D-RATS takes this further, allowing you to actually run, say,
> outlook express on the client computer and connect to your mail server
> as you normally would.
>
> However, I can definitely add something to D-RATS to make it a little
> more integrated than that.  Imagine an "Email" form that has to,
> subject, and message fields.  If you put an email address in the to
> field and send it to a station that has internet connectivity, that
> station will convert it into an email and send it out.  I could do the
> same thing on incoming mails, converting them back to an "email" form.
> How does that sound?
>
> The first bit (the sending part) of that is actually not all that much
> work...
>
> Do others on the list (perhaps those who have used D-STAR Comms) have
> any input in this area?
>
> -- 
> Dan Smith
> dsmith#danplanet.com, s/#/@/
> www.danplanet.com
> KK7DS
>