so ive been trying to get Winlink Express set up for the past few weekends and im losing my mind a little. background - im running a IC-7300 into a SignaLink USB, been using VARA HF for the modem software. i can see gateways in the session list, i can even see them beaconing on my waterfall sometimes, but when i try to actually initiate a connection i either get nothing back or it starts the handshake and then just drops.

ive gone through the Winlink wiki like three times and i feel like im missing something obvious. my audio levels seem ok, PTT is definitely keying the radio (i can see the TX light and i can hear the tone going out), but no joy. is there some firewall thing i need to deal with for the Winlink servers? or is this more likely an audio level issue on the receive side? the gateway im trying to hit is maybe 60 miles out which shouldnt be a problem on 40m i would think.

also not sure if this matters but im running the radio through a tuner into a trapped vertical, SWR is around 1.5:1 on 40m. any help appreciated

60 miles on 40m should be totally doable, that sounds like either a timing issue or your receive audio is clipping. the VARA modem is really picky about levels -- you want to see that little input meter in VARA sitting around 50% or so, not pegged. a lot of people come in too hot and the decoder just falls apart even though it sounds fine to your ears.

also check if the gateway you're targeting is actually a VARA HF gateway and not a Pactor or Winmor one. they all show up in the list but you gotta match the mode or it'll just sit there doing nothing. you can filter by mode in Winlink Express session settings. that tripped me up when i first started too. if you still cant get it, try hitting one of the telnet gateways first just to confirm your message handling and account stuff is all working, then go back to RF once you know the software side is good.

yeah what he said about levels is spot on. i spent probably two weeks chasing what i thought was a propagation problem and it turned out my mic gain in the 7300's menu was way too high. the IC-7300 has that built in USB audio and theres like three different places you can adjust gain which is honestly kind of annoying. go into the menu and look at the USB AF output level, make sure that one is set reasonable before you start tweaking anything in Windows or SignaLink.

one other thing - are you on the latest version of VARA? there was a version a while back that had some weirdness with certain gateway handshakes and it drove people nuts. Winlink Express itself also pushes updates pretty regularly, worth checking you're current on both.