Reverse Forwarding Messages from Your Mailbox
The TNC mailbox will allow you to enter messages which will be forwarded by
full-service BBSs (RLI, MBL, etc). These messages have a special format, and
can be entered in any personal mailbox. Let’s suppose you want to send a mes
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sage to WA4EWV who lives in Texas. You know his home BBS is WB5BBW, so
you can put this message in the PBBS with the command:
S WA4EWV @ WB5BBW
Entering an @ BBS will cause the TNC to reverse forward this message to a full
service BBS when requested by the full service BBS. In order to improve the
chances of this message reaching its destination, you should always enter the
message with complete hierarchical forwarding:
S WA4EWV @ WB5BBW.#STX.TX.USA.NOAM
Complete information on Hierarchical forwarding can be obtained from your lo-
cal BBS system operator, but basically the first field after the @ symbol is the
HOME BBS of the station you are trying to send a message. The next several
fields (separated by periods) are the state (two letter postal abbreviation), coun-
try, and continent. In this case, since Texas is so large, it is sub-divided into
smaller areas. These are indicated with the # symbol (in this case #STX — South
Texas).
Messages entered into your mailbox in this format will be reverse forwarded to
the full service BBS when requested, and the following rules apply:
The TNC acts like a “smart BBS” when forwarding to or from a full service
BBS. This means that it will no longer send the SUBJECT: prompt, nor will it
send the ENTER MESSAGE prompt. You will also notice that when a
full-service BBS connects to your PBBS, the TNC does not send the usual
ENTER COMMAND prompt, but only the > is sent. This is designed to reduce
the amount of data on the packet network, since “smart” BBSs know what is ex
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pected of them.
Once a Private or Traffic message has been successfully forwarded out of your
mailbox, it will be deleted from the PBBS if PBKILLFW is ON. Bulletins will be
marked with a status of “F” and will remain in the PBBS.
Packet Modes of Operation PBBS (Personal Mailbox)
User’s Guide 174 KAM’98 v 8.3