D-Rats WinLink integration is pretty limited. It can send mail via internet to an internet WinLink account....it acts as an internet email front-end. The email "client" in D-Rats is also a regular internet email client for your POP/SMTP account D-Rats can use to allow other stations to forward internet mail using your account and internet connection---very much the same functionality as WinLink----RF to another RF station, then into the internet email system.?
We use all three main "digital" platforms to train because you never know what is going to be available in an emergency. We have to know all of them. WinLink, in my area, is HF only. We do not support HF for our emcomm here. Our support is local-only (county-wide, with some spillover into adjacent counties). HF can be used in the form of a relay out of our area for some reason, but we'd likely use home stations for this relay. Many of us have that capability. WinLink HF has a very serious throughput limitation....you may want to warn the powers that be about that. There are few HF RMS nodes, fewer you can reach at any given time due to propagation, and it is SLOW (even the fast modes aren't that fast). In a real emergency there is a lot of traffic that will try to squeeze through a very narrow WinLink pipe. AND....WinLink is fixed frequency, no voice, no way to prioritize traffic prior to tying up the machine. These are pretty severe shortcomings. On VHF it can be much better....less traffic, much faster, etc. Less competition for the limited resource. WinLink is popular with agencies (this my opinion) for two main reasons: 1. Agencies see it as a way to integrate fail-safe ham radio into their normal email program. Zero learning curve. 2. There is a MAJOR WinLink lobby present. ARRL drank the Kool Aid (maybe an American reference---Jim Jones...look it up).?
What actually DOES integrate with D-Rats is old-fashioned AX25 packet. Via the "ratflector" or D-Rats repeater. Not voice (that requires AMBE) but data can integrate pretty completely. So an FM radio and TNC (KISS) can exchange data with D-Star serial data via a "ratflector" (D-Rats repeater)...you hook up both a DStar radio and a packet radio to the same computer running the "ratflector"....all data coming in one port goes out all ports in the appropriate mode. I've tried it...works great.?
