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All communications sent via Winlink arrive at the Central
Mail Box Office. This forwards mail to the ultimate destinations, that is,
either to other radio amateurs in the Winlink network or the those at home
with Internet email addresses. A single message may have multiple Winlink
and Internet email addresses.
The CMBO also forwards position reports received from travelers to Automatic Position Reporting websites like “FindU” and “Pangolin”. These websites can be accessed by family and friends at home to monitor the traveler’s progress. The CMBO also automatically sends replies to Users who requested, say, weather reports, news digests and reports about security matters that are included in the Winlink Catalogue. Finally, as stated before, the CMBO has a powerful spam blocking facility that rejects all mail coming from sources that are not known to Winlink Users. (A special provision exits to contact a User directly even though the sender has had no earlier contact with the concerned traveler.) Winlink is becoming increasingly important for disaster and emergency relief operations. To take account of the vulnerability of the Internet from terrorists attacks and technical failures, the topography of the Winlink system is being redesigned. Instead of the relying on one Central Mail Box Office and the single backup PMBO, the network will incorporate a number of Regional Mail Box Offices. Therefore, in the event that one part of the radio network or Internet connectivity fails, communications will be automatically rerouted via the most expeditious available Internet nodes. This is important for Australia as it has few Internet gateways.
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