Monday, September 10, 2018 marks the first day of operation in Honduras of the first Hybrid Trimode Radio Message Server (RMS) node of ITU’s Winlink Project for the Americas, thanks to the technical support of Federación de Mexicana de Radio Experimentadores (configuration and operation) through Jonathan Remba, XE1BRX, in Honduras, and Alfonso Tamez, XE2O, in Mexico, besides Mike Burton, XE2/N6KZB, of the Winlink Group, remotely via Internet.

For several days, Omar Paredes, HR1OP, from Club de Radioaficionados Central de Honduras (CRACH), along with COPECO technicians, carried out location and installation tests for the antenna and HF/VHF radio equipment before starting the operation of this WL2K iGate node.

During the operation tests, several radio amateur stations from Guatemala and Honduras connected via HF to the iGate node of Honduras, with the following stations being the first Central American stations to establish a connection:
 — Francisco Vassaux, TG9ANF, in the WINMOR mode
 — David Lardizabal, HQ2DDL, in the VARA mode

Besides, the Hybrid RMS WL2K iGate from Honduras sent its first email message via HF with the following text:

“Trial of first official WINLINK message from Honduras with Mike Burton, Alfonso Tamez, Miguel Alcaine, Rodrigo Robles and Dr. Pio Santos HR2P.

Jonathan Remba, XE1BRX”

Rodrigo Robles, Region 2 Emergency Coordinator of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), commented the following during the installation of this first operational of the ITU Winlink Project for America: “This is a system that will change telecommunications in Central America because, not only from the standpoint of the technical solution, which is a first-level one, but also because of the necessary coordination between radio amateurs, governments, through Emergency Operations Centers and also between regulatory (telecommunications) entities and international organizations. I believe that it is a project that will favor coordination among countries, especially in case of a disaster; where we will be better coordinated at the country and regional level.”

He also added that he remembered that it was a year ago when he had a conversation about the possibility of having a radio amateur Winlink system for Central America, and then a design was made for Central America which could be used for emergency communications, with redundancy characteristics; therefore, “with great satisfaction, this September 10^th, 2018, the first installation and configuration of the Winlink Hybrid Trimode RMS Pactor IV nodes of ITU’s Project is being completed in Honduras. With that, as of today, all Central America and all visitors to the region can have access to this solution. We hope to finish tomorrow (September 11, 2018) with a training session on the WL2K System for COPECO, CONATEL and several first-response entities, and to start using this Winlink system.”

According to Eng. Robles, the intention is to continue in the coming days with the installation and configuration of subsequent iGate WL2K nodes in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, to then complete the WL2K hybrid network in each one of the Central American countries.

Here is a video about this event by COPECO.

https://​www​.facebook​.com/​c​o​p​e​c​o​.​h​n​/​v​i​d​e​o​s​/​2​0​9​2​7​6​5​1​5​7​7​1​8​3​97/

73

Cesar Pio Santos HR2P
EMCOR IARU R2

Also available in Español (Spanish).