so ive been trying to get Winlink going for a few weeks now and i think i mostly have it working but theres a few things im still not clear on. background: im running an IC-7300 into a SignaLink USB, running Vara HF. i can connect to some gateways just fine but others time out and i dont really understand why some work and others dont.

the main thing thats bugging me is how the RMS relay stuff works. like i get that theres the CMS (central message server) up in the cloud somewhere and then the RMS gateways are the local radio nodes that connect to it, but what i dont understand is what happens if the internet is down at the gateway end. does my message just sit in the gateway until it comes back up? or is there some store-and-forward thing happening over RF between gateways? ive read conflicting things about this.

also when im picking channels in Winlink it shows propagation scores and all that, should i just trust those or is there a better way to figure out which gateway to hit? sometimes the one it suggests is terrible and one further down the list works great. not sure if im missing something obvious here.

the store and forward question is a good one and honestly the documentation doesnt explain it super clearly. short answer: if the RMS gateway loses its internet connection your message does sit at the gateway temporarily, and yes there is peer-to-peer capability where gateways can exchange messages with each other over RF without needing internet in the middle, but that mode (RMS Relay or sometimes called hybrid networking) has to be specifically configured at those nodes and most public gateways arent set up that way. for most typical usage you pretty much need the gateway to have a working internet connection to the CMS or your message isnt going anywhere until it does.

as for picking channels, honestly i dont fully trust the propagation scores either. they pull from VOACAP and the beacon data but conditions change fast. what i usually do is look at the gateway's last heard time in the list, if a gateway hasnt had a successful session in a while thats a yellow flag. also just try connecting and watch your Vara waterfall, youll get a feel pretty quick if the path is any good. sometimes a gateway thats 800 miles away on 40m is cleaner than one thats supposedly closer because of local noise or antenna situation at their end.

yeah the channel picker thing drove me nuts too when i was getting started. one thing i noticed is that the propagation predictions dont account for whatever noise floor situation the gateway is dealing with on their end. ive had gateways show green in the selector and then i connect and Vara is struggling to decode anything because apparently that site has some kind of interference issue. theres a couple gateways near me that are just always solid and i basically just default to those now unless band conditions are really weird.

also make sure your Vara is actually tuned right, that took me forever to figure out. if your audio levels are off even a little bit it makes everything flaky and you blame the gateway when its actually your own setup. the Vara calibration thing in the settings is worth doing if you havent already.