Winlink RMS Express with Mac and Pactor

This is Ki7QFV documenting the settings I used to hook my older MacBook Pro up to a Pactor modem to send Winlink mail over HF. Keep in mind this is only allowed AFTER you get your general license, and it's in the FCC database. The email gateways may reject your email if your callsign isn't showing as "general". SUMMARY OF MY STEPS: (and do the install over a FAST internet connection - lots to download).

1) Install Homebrew, note step b is all on ONE line.

   a) open terminal
   b) run /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

2) in the same terminal window, type:

   a) brew install wine && brew install winetricks
   b) WINEARCH=win32; export WINEARCH
   c) winetricks dotnet35sp1

3) open a new terminal window (so you have 2 windows to look at). These steps will link your Mac driver to Winlink Express.

   a) cd /dev
   b)  ls
   c) **look at the list - which one looks like it has the word serial in it?** substitute that in line e below
   d)  cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
   e)  ln -s /dev/cu.usbserial-#### com2  

4) in your other terminal window

   a) edit the ~/.wine/system.reg file and make sure it has the following lines in it. They may already be there.  

   [Hardware\\Devicemap\\Serialcomm] 1231984861
   #time=1c976b51d546c80
   "Serial1"="COM2"

5) download RMSExpress and unzip the windows installer - so you have an MSI to work with. Remove spaces from the name!

6) in either of your terminal windows, change to the msi directory location and type the following

   a) wine msiexec /i RMSExpressSetup.msi  
   b) wine ~/.wine/drive_c/RMS\ Express/RMS\ Express.exe  (or whatever location on the virtual C drive that you used)

7) Pick telnet winlink, open session, and then click start. Make sure your basic winlink configuration is correct.

8) then pick Pactor winlink, PTC-IIUSB, Com2 for the serial port, and 9600 for the baud rate. Send FCC ID, and set your Max Pactor level to 3. You'll also need to configure your radio model - select radio model, select USB, Select Radio Control via TNC, Baud Rate 4800 (or whatever is most appropriate for you).

9) to get a list of local Pactor channels, you may need to download them. Make sure you've configured your grid square. There's a bug - choose *update table via radio* - and then use telnet to fetch the list over the internet.

10) Switch back to Pactor winlink, choose your channel, and set your radio frequency to match!

11) Send yourself a winlink message, and cc an internet email you can easily check; if needed, check it out on the winlink webmail page, to see if it's working.