PBBS
21
Reverse forwarding messages from your mailbox
The Kantronics TNC mailbox will allow you to enter messages which will be forwarded by full-ser-
vice BBSs (RLI, MBL, etc.). These messages have a special format and can only be entered in your
OWN personal mailbox. Let's suppose I want to send a message to WA4EMV who lives in Texas. I
know his home BBS is WB5BBW, so I can put this message in my PBBS with the command:
S WA4EMV @ WB5BBW.#STX.TX.USA.NA
Complete information on Hierarchical forwarding can be obtained from your local BBS system oper-
ator, 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), country 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:
If the first item after the @ symbol begins with "NTS", the message will be sent as TRAFFIC using
the ST command. All other messages will be sent as PRIVATE with the SP command when they are
sent to the full-service BBS. The TNC does not incorporate any means to initiate a BULLETIN from
its PBBS.
If you attempt to send a message to ALL @ AMSAT, for instance, the local full-service BBS would
receive it as a PRIVATE message and not as a bulletin. As a result, it would not be accessible by
anyone other than the SYSOPs of the BBSs. Although this may seem to be an inconvenience, it is
necessary to help avoid over-congesting the Packet network with duplicate copies of the same bul-
letin.
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 al-
so 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 expected of them.
One a message has been successfully forwarded out of your mailbox, it will be deleted from the
PBBS.
