so ive been trying to get Winlink Express working for the past few weekends and im at the point where i can connect to an RMS gateway, start the session, it does the handshake and everything looks fine, then about 30-40 seconds in it just drops. no error message that makes any sense, just disconnects and the software acts like nothing happened. my message never actually goes through.

im running it on VHF, 144.990 in my area, using a Kenwood TM-V71A into a Signalink USB. the Signalink levels seem fine, ive got the dial set around 40% and i can see the waterfall activity in Vara FM when the session is trying to establish. its not a weak signal thing, the gateway is maybe 8 miles away and im running 50w into a decent vertical.

what i cant figure out is if this is a timing issue on my end, a problem with how the RMS gateway handles partial sessions, or something in my Vara FM settings. the session log shows the initial WINLINK handshake completing but then it falls apart during what looks like the proposal phase? or whatever that part is called. anyone run into this before

yeah this sounds like it could be a VARA FM bandwidth setting mismatch. check what bandwidth the gateway is advertising versus what your VARA FM is set to — if the gateway is trying to negotiate down to narrow and your client isnt following that negotiation cleanly it can drop right in that proposal phase you're describing. go into VARA FM settings and try forcing it to 2300 Hz or whatever the gateway is actually using. also double check your soundcard sample rate is set to 48000 in windows, not 44100, that causes weird mid-session drops that look totally unrelated to what's actually happening.

the signalink dial position honestly sounds fine for 50w, wouldnt mess with that. also worth checking if you have any other audio apps running that might be grabbing the device intermittently, ive seen that cause exactly this kind of thing where the first part of a session works then it falls apart.

had almost the exact same problem last year. turned out my computer was going into some kind of USB power saving mode and dropping the Signalink mid-session. go into device manager, find your USB audio device, properties, power management tab, uncheck the box that lets windows turn it off to save power. fixed mine completely, was driving me crazy for like three weeks before i found that.