Due to a wiring/design error in my backup battery charging circuit, the smoke came out of my Kenwood TM-V71A radio during a backup power test. Consequently, my RMS Packet Gateway will be down until the radio can be repaired or replaced. Appropriately enough, the part labeled "D612 Surge Absorber" in the TM-V71A schematics sacrificed itself in the melee. I ordered the part and assuming it was the only component damaged in the incident, I should have the radio repaired by next weekend.
Got it back up and eeked out a couple months of runtime thanks to very friendly new owners of the property.
Packing up the station and moving to a new location with severe challenges for antennas, so no idea if KF7RSF will return as a Gateway. All those who have listed this Gateway as a MPS need to delete and re-register a new choice for the future.
The 2m 'multispeed' gateway HB9AK-1, that is offering packet radio access to the WINLINK network with different modulations and speeds (AFSK 1200 Bd, BPSK 1200 Bd, BPSK 2400 Bd, QPSK 2400 bps, QPSK 3600 bps) has now added VARA FM (both 1200 and 9600) as additional modes of operation. The gateway listens in all modes for connect requests and answers in the respective mode. VARA FM (9600) reaches a throughput of up to 80 kBytes/min, a more than ten fold increase compared to conventional packet AFSK1200.