ROUTING MESSAGES EFFECTIVELY
============================

 Well, I'm very gratified that my original 14-part series was so well received
and I want to thank everyone who gave me feedback on it. The "II" series
messages will come out only on a sporadic basis at non-regular intervals, most
of which will relate to various common issues not covered in the first series.

This one regards  the "hierarchical routing" scheme.

A few years back, sending a message to a ham in another state or locality was
a kind of hit-or-miss affair. Your message depended highly upon whether or not
a given BBS knew where to send your message onwards so that it wound up at the
proper BBS.  This was completely up to chance, for the most part. Sysops of
"big" BBSs generally had (through much trouble and hassles) routes to send
messages onwards towards the destination BBS. As packet became more popular,
and BBS system started to spring up across the country, it became much more
difficult to determine who to forward to, what path to use, what frequency
to use, what nodes to link to, and umpteen jillion other factors. Thus was
born the "hierarchical address" stuff, that promised a better, more rational
way to route packet messages. It's a great system, WHEN IT WORKS. It doesn't
work worth a hoot if you don't follow the protocol.

Basically, the hierarchical routing scheme, commonly denoted as "H-ROUTING",
is designed to speed your
id designed to speed your messages onward to the destination BBS. The theory
is that all BBS's have, or should have, a path to forward their messages
outwards to other BBS's that are closer to the destination station.

Most of the time it works....IF you address your messages correctly. Ignore
the routing or leave the routing info off of the address completely at your
own risk...don't yell at the sysop if you find your messages never got
forwarded.

So if you do not correctly address your messages so that they wind up
at the destination BBS, you hafta correctly format the address under the
"H-ROUTING" scheme. The parts of the H-ROUTING protocol are as follows:

Suppose I wanted to send a personal message to Hugh Turnbull, W3ABC, who
is the ARRL Division Honcho for the Atlantic Division, ARRL. He uses
WA3ZNW for "Home BBS."  Being in Maryland, I already know that route...but
suppose I was up in New York, or some other place and I didn't have a route
to WA3ZNW, but knew the "home BBS?"

Hugh's packet address would be thus:
W3ABC  @  WA3ZNW.MD.USA.NA (NOAM)
|------------|---|---|--|----|
|-------------------------------Destination Ham
             |------------------Destination "home BBS"
                 |--------------Destination State where "home BBS" located
                     |----------Destination Country "home BBS" located
                         |------Destination Contenent where "home BBS" Located
                             |  Alternative contenent abbreviation.
The (NAOM is an alternative contenent designator being suggested by W3IWI and
others that would create a more accurate 4-letter contenent code than the
present 3-letter contenent code...It means "North America" as vs SOAM for
"South America" and CRRB for "Carribean" to take in the islands currently
considered part of NA, but aren't really...such as Cuba, the Cayman's, etc)

If you simply addressed mail to "W3ABC @ WA3ZNW" it might never get there, but
if you addressed it  to "W3ABC @ WA3ZNW.MD.USA.NA" it would more likely get
to him.

BBS programs are fairly smart, and they will try to forward your message if
they have a path, but they're not psychic.  If you sent a message to
"W3ABC @ WA3ZNW" by itself, the BBS might not know how to route it. BUT if
you sent it "W3ABC @ WA3ZNW.MD.USA.NA" it has a good chance of getting to
the destination.

I've had people enter messages to oversees stations that left everything out
of the address. Example" CE3DN @ CE3DN"  looks ok, but AIN'T! Where is the
CE3 station? No state or continent code...supplied. This station MIGHT be
in the USA under a reciprical permit, or might be in CE land. The BBS has
no way to tell, and will treat this as a hung message...which means it
is stuck and needs sysop intervention. However, sysops are not mind readers
either, and have no idea whether to forward this message to CE land or
what.  This was a true example on KA3RFE...I had to kill it as being
undeliverable...no H-ROUTING info at all.

The H-ROUTING is specific and is VERY unforgiving. If you do not correctly
enter ALL the parts of the address correctly, the message is going to get
stuck at some point. You CAN'T leave out the important part.

>>>  The two-letter STATE code used by the US Postal Service  <<<

HOWEVER: if you are sending mail to a large state, it may be broken down
into regional forwarding.  This stuff shows up as a "pound sign" designator.
Example: Tidewater Virginia stations (on the Eastern Shore of Virginia)
use  .#TIDE  as a regional designator.  Look at that again, there a PERIOD,
followed by the POUND SIGN and TIDE.  No matter what regional designator
the PERIOD ALWAYS HAS TO BE THERE. With no spaces between the period, the
pound sign and the designator.

You cannot send mail just using the regional designator. IT WON'T WORK.

A message to WB0TAX BBS in Norfolk,VA would be addressed: WB0TAX.#TIDE.VA.USA

If you sent it to WB0TAX.VA, the message would (probably) get there, but
since it's in the Virginia Tidewater area, using the .#TIDE.VA.USA would make
it easier for "the network" to route the mail.