so ive been trying to get Winlink working for a few weeks now and i think im close but something isnt clicking with the gateway side of things. been running Vara FM on my 2m setup and can connect to a local RMS gateway just fine, messages go out, great. but now i want to run my own RMS gateway for our ARES group and i cant figure out if i need to be running RMS Relay or just Winlink Express configured as a gateway — the docs are kind of all over the place depending on which version theyre talking about.

my setup is a kenwood TM-V71A into a signalink, running on a pi 4 at the club station. i got VARA FM licensed. the gateway would mostly be for local traffic and passing messages during exercises when internet is sketchy. do i need a separate callsign for the gateway or can it just be my call with a -10 or whatever? and how does the message store-and-forward actually work if the gateway itself doesnt have internet — does it just hold traffic until a connected node picks it up or what

any help appreciated, been lurking here long enough i figured id just ask

ok so the RMS Relay vs gateway thing confused me too when i set ours up. basically if you want a full internet-connected gateway you want RMS Relay — thats the software that actually registers with the Winlink network and forwards to the CMS servers. Winlink Express can act as a peer-to-peer node but its not the same as a proper gateway on the network map. for your ARES use case you probably want RMS Relay on the pi with the radio hanging off it.

on the callsign question — you can use your own call, a lot of people do, but your gateway will show up on the RMS list under that call. some groups use the club call with an SSID. no hard rule i think, just check with your regional coordinator if you have one because some groups like consistency for drills. the SSID thing is fine, -10 works or whatever isnt taken locally.

for store-and-forward without internet — this is where it gets a little nuanced. if your gateway is running but has no CMS connectivity it can still accept messages from field stations and hold them in its local store. when connectivity comes back (or another gateway connects via RF) it forwards them. its not automatic peer routing like a packet BBS used to do, so your nodes kinda need to be able to reach the CMS eventually one way or another. for pure offline exercises a lot of groups just pre-stage messages or run a local Winlink Express peer-to-peer session, which sidesteps the whole CMS thing entirely.

yeah the docs are a mess, dont feel bad. i spent like a weekend just figuring out which version of RMS Relay actually worked on a pi without weird mono dependency issues. pretty sure there was a forum thread somewhere about running it under wine vs native but i cant remember if that was resolved

one thing that tripped me up — make sure your gateway frequency is registered in the channel list on the Winlink site or field stations wont find it automatically in Winlink Express. you have to add it manually through your sysop account. seems obvious in hindsight but yeah.