so ive been trying to get winlink working properly for about two weeks now and im at the point where i think i fundamentally misunderstood how this is supposed to work. let me explain what ive got going on.

running a IC-7300 into a SignaLink USB, vara HF is installed and seems to be connecting, but when i try to send a message through an RMS gateway it just sits there doing the handshake thing and then drops. i can hear the vara tones going out on the radio so RF is definitely happening. checked my audio levels a dozen times, they look fine in the vara tuning screen.

my question is more basic though - when i add a channel in winlink express, am i supposed to be picking the actual nearby RMS stations from the list or is the software smart enough to find them automatically? i feel like ive been manually entering callsigns and frequencies but i saw someone mention something about the propnet integration or the RMS list updating on its own and now im not sure if ive been overcomplicating this the whole time.

also does the gateway station need to be specifically set up for vara HF or can any RMS relay handle that mode? there's a few stations within 500 miles of me but i dont know their mode capabilities without just trying them one by one.

the RMS list in winlink express updates automatically when you open the channel selector, it pulls from the winlink.org server so you dont need to manually type callsigns in most cases. there's a dropdown where you can filter by mode - vara HF, pactor, winmor etc - and that'll show you which nearby gateways actually support what you're running.

the handshake dropping is a different issue though. most common cause ive seen is the audio being slightly too hot going into vara even when it looks okay on the meters. vara is really picky about that. try pulling the signalink tx knob down more than you think you need to and also make sure your IC-7300 data mod level is set right - i run mine around 50% on the input level in the radio menu and that sorted out a similar problem for me. also worth checking that you have the correct USB audio device selected in vara and not some windows default thing that snuck in after an update.

yeah what he said about the audio levels, that bites everyone at least once. but also - are you running vara in free mode or did you buy the license? free mode limits the speed pretty significantly and some gateways kinda struggle with the slower connection timing, i had one session that just timed out repeatedly until i upgraded and then suddenly everything worked fine. not saying you have to spend the money but its worth knowing thats a variable.

the gateway mode thing, you can actually just look up any callsign on winlink.org under the gateway search and it'll tell you exactly what modes that station is running and what frequencies they monitor. saves a lot of guessing.