I made a note in my Moleskine notebook.

At nearly the same moment, a bead of sweat decided to contribute to the page as well.

I looked over at the Panasonic FZ-M1.

The morning had disappeared faster than I realized.

I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and reached for the Anker 737 power bank. A 15-volt USB-C trigger cable brought the tablet back onto external power.

According to my itinerary, the next lesson was Winlink.

Unlike the previous BBS exercise, my Winlink gateway at home depends on an active Internet connection. Earlier that morning, I suspected our microwave Internet link had gone down, preventing us from reaching Internet-backed services like SWPC and Wikipedia

Maybe the link had come back.

There was only one way to find out.

"Have you ever used Winlink before?" I asked.

"I have an account, but never really used it." he said.

"Perfect."

I explained that Winlink allows amateur radio operators to send and receive email over radio, often bridging into the Internet via radio gateways, like the one I have at home.

"Do you remember your password?"

He reached for his phone resting on the folding table and began searching through his password manager.

A few moments later, just as he found it, the phone rang.

He looked at the screen.

"I need to take this."

"It's the office. They know I'm on vacation."

I couldn't help but smile.

"So much for being completely off-grid." I thought to myself.

We were still close enough to civilization for a nearby cell tower to reach us.

While he took the call, I organized my notes.

With the Baofeng DM-32 still connected through the DigiRig Lite interface, I instructed him to open a terminal and type:

He pressed ENTER to keep his callsign unchanged.

Another ENTER accepted his Maidenhead grid square (FN18).

When prompted, he entered his Winlink password.

Now it was time to change operating modes.

Back to our trusty t-modecommand.

Using the small rubber down-arrow key on the iKey keyboard, he scrolled to:

and pressed ENTER.

Behind the scenes, EmComm Tools automatically started a 1200-baud AX.25 packet modem and launched the Pat Winlink email client.

No configuration.

No hunting for serial ports.

No editing configuration files.

Okay...

Minimal nerd stuff.

After all, this still isn't quite as simple as checking email on your iPhone.

Everything was ready.

There was only one question left.

Had the microwave Internet link back at the house come back to life?

The temperature was beginning to make its presence known, but the next exercise called for requesting weather information over amateur radio using Winlink.

Back to the trusty stack of field cards.

He pulled out the card labeled Winlink: Catalog Requests

Following the instructions on the card, I had him compose a new message:

The workflow for Winlink differs from traditional email.

First, you compose the message.

Next, you post it to your Outbox.

Finally, it's up to you to establish a radio connection to a Winlink gateway, known as an RMS Gatewayto exchange mail.

For this exercise, we would connect over 1200-baud AX.25 packet on the 2-meter band to my Winlink gateway a few miles away.

I had him filter the gateway list for the 2-meter band and select my RMS gateway:

He took one last sip of coffee.

Then he clicked Connect.

I won't lie.

I was nervous.

The earlier failures with SWPC and Wikipedia had convinced me that the microwave Internet link back at the house had gone down. My Winlink gateway depended on that same connection to exchange email with the Winlink Common Message Servers (CMS).

I didn't want this exercise to fail.

More importantly, I didn't want to disappoint my student.

For a few long seconds, the LED on the radio alternated between red and green.

Then...

It connected.

I smiled.

The microwave Internet link had come back.

Without saying a word, I knew exactly what had happened earlier that morning. The outage hadn't been in my radio network at all. The culprit had been the Internet connection feeding the station back at the house.

Sometimes the best troubleshooting tool is patience.

I had my student switch to the Outbox view so he could watch the message patiently waiting to be transmitted over the radio link.

A few moments later, a blue progress bar appeared.

Finally...

The message disappeared from the Outbox.

Success.

Over our 1200-baud VHF packet link, the transmission had taken roughly 20 seconds.

The request was now on its way to the Winlink INQUIRY service.

Unlike a web browser, the response isn't generated immediately. The server processes the request, prepares the weather report, and queues it for delivery back to the Winlink service. That usually takes about five minutes.

Rather than sit and wait, I suggested another exercise.

"Why don't you send an email to your wife?"

He looked up.

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Winlink can exchange email with anyone in the world who has a valid email address."

While he composed his message, I began breaking down our coffee station.

After pecking away at the little rubber keyboard for a few minutes, his status report was ready.

He clicked Connect once more, teasing the Baofeng into another red and green light show as packets danced back and forth across the air.

A few moments later, his message was gone.

Immediately afterward, a new message began downloading.

The National Weather Service had replied.

The forecast was only about 3.3 KB in size.

Today, that's smaller than most web page icons.

Yet over a 1200-baud packet radio link, it took nearly two minutes to arrive.

Another success.

A seven-day forecast delivered entirely over amateur radio.

I glanced at tomorrow's prediction.

It looked like the desert had no intention of giving us a break.

By now, it was time to break camp and head to our next location.

Before shutting everything down, I checked the power situation one last time.

The Panasonic FZ-M1 had climbed back to 98%

The Anker 737 had dropped to 64%.

A fair trade.

We powered everything down, zipped the clamshell case around the FZ-M1, folded the table and chairs, and played one more game of Jeep-packing Tetris.

The temperature had climbed to 108°F.

We stepped onto the Jeep's side rails, unclipped the S-Biners from the roll cage, recovered the trekking poles and stakes, and lowered the shelter.

This time, there would be no neatly folded tarp.

It received the same treatment most field gear gets after a long, hot morning—a quick roll and a toss behind the driver's seat.

Sometimes "good enough" really is good enough.

Less than five minutes later, camp had disappeared.

The Jeep doors slammed shut.

The air conditioning came to life.

We eased off the saddle and began crawling our way down the rocky trail.

The morning's classroom was now behind us.

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