Digital Modes
Winlink: Email by Radio
Send and receive email over amateur radio, with or without the internet, from home, the road or an emergency shelter.
What Winlink is
Winlink is a worldwide system that moves email over radio. Your computer talks to your radio, your radio reaches a gateway station (called an RMS), and the gateway passes your message into the Winlink system and on to an ordinary email address. Replies come back the same way.
It’s one of the most useful tools in emergency communications because it carries written messages accurately. A list of supplies or names sent by email arrives exactly as written, which is hard to guarantee by voice.
What you need
- A licence: any Canadian amateur can use Winlink on the bands their qualification allows. HF needs Basic with Honours or the Morse qualification.
- A Winlink account: it’s tied to your callsign and free to register.
- Client software: Winlink Express on Windows is the most common. Pat is a free, open-source client that runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and the Raspberry Pi.
- A connection between computer and radio: a sound card interface for most modes, or a terminal node controller (TNC) for packet.
- A radio: a VHF/UHF FM radio for packet or VARA FM to a local gateway, or an HF rig for longer-distance connections.
Ways to connect
- Telnet: over the internet. No radio involved, but it’s the easiest way to set up your account and test your software.
- VHF/UHF packet or VARA FM: to a gateway within radio range. Fast and reliable when there’s one nearby.
- HF (VARA HF or ARDOP): to gateways hundreds or thousands of kilometres away. Slower, but it works when everything local is down.
- Peer to peer: station to station with no gateway and no internet at all, useful between two locations during an outage.
Rules to keep in mind
- Amateur rules still apply: no business use, no music, no obscured meaning beyond what the protocol itself requires.
- Messages are not private. Gateway operators and others can see the traffic, so don’t send anything confidential.
- Identify properly. The software does it for you, but you’re still the control operator.
Getting started
- Install the client and register your callsign.
- Send yourself a test message over telnet.
- Use the client’s gateway list to find the nearest RMS on VHF and on HF, then try a radio connection.
- Practise before you need it. Many nets and emergency groups run regular Winlink check-ins.
Where to go next
Last updated October 2026.