Bulletin Board Functions

The DX PacketCluster contains an excellent mail and BBS service. It can be used to send mail to users which are anywhere in the network. Forwarding of mail and bulletins is automatic between nodes, and it is not necessary to know the location of the station to which you're sending mail. The following commands are used to operate the bulletin board from within the Cluster. For detailed information on these commands, consult the section of this manual on COMMANDS.

Mail Functions All users on an individual PacketCluster node may send and receive mail using the commands described below. Be aware that, when sending messages, PacketCluster does not automatically wrap lines when the line reaches 80 characters. If you are used to word processors where you do not ever have to hit the RETURN key, your messages may not be as readable by the recipient as they could be. It is recommended that, when you reach the end of a line, you hit the return key. This puts the next part of the text on a separate line in the message. If this is not done, your input is sent by your TNC when you reach the length set in your TNC by a parameter called PACLEN, and the message lines appear, to the recipient, to break randomly.

Mail may be sent to any string of characters. Usually the characters are callsigns, but we also accept mail addressed to ALL, LOCAL, or to any of several distribution lists, which are set up for various purposes. Messages to ALL are available for all the local users to read, and are also sent to all of the other Cluster nodes that are connected at the time the message is forwarded. When mail is sent to you, you will get a message from the Cluster stating that you have new mail. If you are not connected when the mail arrives, the Cluster will inform you of its arrival the next time you connect.

After you read a message that has been sent to you, a hyphen (-) is displayed next to the message number in the DIRECTORY command output.

Messages may be deleted by either the sender of the message or the recipient, and, of course, the sysop. Additionally, the sysop can set the Cluster up so that messages are automatically deleted after a set number of days--ours is set to automatically delete after 8 days. If you have a message that you wish to keep from automatically deleting, tell the sysop so that he can set in a code that prevents the deletion from taking place. Messages which have this code set in are shown with a plus sign (+) next to the message number. If the message has been read by the addressee, and is not to be deleted, an asterisk (*) is displayed next to the message number. Also remember that if you send a message to ALL, and you delete it, the Cluster will attempt to delete it Cluster wide, but the command will not be received by nodes that are disconnected at the time you delete it.

If you send a mail message to a user on another node on the Cluster, PacketCluster automatically forwards this message to the node where the recipient is connected. This station may be several nodes away, and the complete message travels node-by-node until it arrives. Upon completion of the forwarding from the originating node to the next adjacent node, the message is then deleted on the originating node, so do not be alarmed if you do a DIRECTORY soon after you leave a message and find that the message is gone...this is the normal sequence of events. The transit time to the receiving node is highly variable. It may be a matter of a few minutes, or several hours and this depends on several factors. Mail is handled at a low priority -- much lower than DX spots, or Talk packets. Typically, it is handled 5 lines at a time, then the sending node waits for a software acknowledgement that those five lines were correctly received. Meanwhile, the nodes proceed with handling DX packets, Talk packets etc. You can understand that if someone on the node sent someone else a 5K file and DX info had to wait on completion of that entire file, things would really slow down. Sometimes when a mail message enters the bottom of our forwarding queue, it is way down the list behind other mail, bulletins, NEWS, QSL info etc. that are already queued up. When forwarding is complete to the next node in the chain, the message again enters the bottom of the forwarding queue on THAT node. This is why we say that the transit time for mail is highly variable. It is greatly dependent on the level of traffic passing through the network at any given time, and why your Talk packets and announcements usually arrive before the message you left in the mail does.

SEND callsign -- initiates a mail message to the station specified. The Cluster will prompt you for a subject, and for your text. Terminate the message with a Ctrl-Z or a /EXIT on a separate line. Private messages may be sent with the SEND/PRIVATE command. Private messages are not visible when you do a DIRECTORY command unless you are either the sender or the addressee (or the sysop). Remember, too, that private messages may still be read by anyone who might be monitoring the channel when it is read. Private messages, when displayed by the DIRECTORY command are shown with a "p" adjacent to the message number. The sysop may set any message to either public or private status.

READ -- When your told that you have mail waiting when you sign on, you can type READ and get the oldest message that is directed to you. When you finish, you can type REPLY, REPLY/DELETE, or READ again. If you type READ again, you'll get the next oldest message for you. READ followed by a message number, will transmit the contents of that message to you.

REPLY -- allows you to reply immediately to a message you have just read. The Cluster prepares the heading and the subject line. Be aware that after you read a message, REPLY works ONLY if it is your very next command -- any other Cluster command executed in between, and REPLY won't work! REPLY/DELETE will prepare your reply, and delete the message you're replying to when you're finished sending.

DELETE -- This deletes the message you just read, or, when followed by a message number, deletes that message if you are the sender or the recipient.

DIRECTORY -- Sends you a directory of the last 5 messages on the BBS. DIRECTORY/ALL will send you the entire directory. DIRECTORY/NEW gets you the new entries in the directory since the last time you issued a DIRECTORY command, and DIRECTORY/OWN will display only the titles of messages addressed to you, or sent by you. DIRECTORY/SUBJ text will allow you to search the subject field of the messages for a topic of interest. For example: type DIR/SUBJ ARRL would get you a list of all those messages that have ARRL in the subject field.

Files & Bulletins There are two main areas of the Bulletin Board portion of the system where files are stored for reference. These are the FILES area and the BULLETINS area, and the capability exists for us to add more if we choose. A third area, called the ARCHIVE area contains files which are no longer timely, and have been placed there for historical purposes. Contents of these areas are shown with the SHOW command, and read by the use of the TYPE command.

SHOW/BULLETINS -- provides you with a list of the current bulletins we have on-line in the BULLETIN area. Usually, these are only the most recent ARRL DX Bulletin, ARRL Propagation Bulletin, Ohio DX Bulletin. When a bulletin becomes out of date, we relegate it to the ARCHIVE area.

SHOW/FILES -- shows you the contents of the FILE area. We keep information here that is of general interest -- tips on use of equipment, pertinent product reviews, timely articles, a complete NADXC roster for downloading etc.You may read any file with the TYPE command: TYPE/FILE filename.

SHOW/ARCHIVE -- These files contain back issues of the ARRL DX and Propagation bulletins, Ohio DX Bulletins, old network maps etc. They are listed by filename, so it helps to know what issue you're looking for. Usually we delete these after 6-9 months.

Distribution Lists PacketCluster supports distribution lists for sending mail messages to groups of users. If you have a group of stations that you normally send mail to, you may wish to talk to the sysop about setting up a distribution list for your use. Currently, we have several such lists, for special interest groups, such as VHF users, the Board of Directors of the DX Club, writers of articles for our club newspaper, the Longpath, for users of selected hardware or software products. They are very easy to create and simple to use.

For example, one that has been set up for VHF use is called VHFMAIL. To send a mail message to all members of that list, a SEND VHFMAIL will put the list into action.

There are two different types of distribution lists, and you may wish to talk to the sysop about suggestions for which one to implement for your particular purposes. One of these is for relatively small lists, say 8-10 users, and consists of individual callsigns. A separate message is sent to each member of the list. Another type is for much larger or more complex distribution lists, and consists of an embedded code in the message that provides routing information to the nodes along the way. We use this, for instance, for the VHFMAIL distribution list which has about 80-90 members. You can see that if 80 or 90 individual messages were suddenly sent from one node to recipients all over the network, that an immediate logjam would result. This latter "embedded" list sends one copy between nodes with a code understood by the node software that provides a list of users on each node who should get a copy. This type of list is a little more difficult to use and requires a good knowledge of the network node topography in order to implement correctly. Your sysop will readily provide assistance if you require use of one of these services.