Store & Forward
Store & Forward holds missed APRS messages for you when your radio isn’t available, then delivers them when you’re back online. It’s part of Internet Assisted.
How it works
When Internet Assisted Delivery is enabled, the service stores every APRS message addressed to your callsign, including any SSID variation. Stored messages then reach Radio Messenger in one of a few ways:
- Addressed to your active station: delivered as a visible alert. The app takes it in and sends the acknowledgement.
- Addressed to another SSID of your callsign that was already acknowledged over the air (for example, you also run another APRS app on a different SSID): delivered quietly, so the app picks it up without alerting or acknowledging again.
Messages remain stored on the server until the app retrieves them. Whenever Radio Messenger launches or returns to the foreground, it checks for missed messages, downloads them, and sends any required acknowledgements. Push notifications can also wake the device so alerts appear even when the phone is locked or the app is not running.
If your phone is offline for a while, such as when Airplane Mode is enabled, or if a conversation is muted and notifications are suppressed, no messages are lost. The app will automatically catch up and retrieve any pending messages the next time it connects to the server.
Acknowledgements happen on your device
The acknowledgement is sent only once a message actually reaches your device, never by the server on your behalf. This matters when your phone is out of signal or left behind:
- Radio Messenger does not acknowledge the message, because it never reached its final destination, your device. That’s the intended behavior.
- The sender sees the message as unacknowledged, the same as if you weren’t running any store-and-forward service.
- The message stays safely on the server, waiting for you in Radio Messenger the moment your phone has internet again.
How this differs from a query-based service
Some operators are used to query-based services such as QRX, where you ask an inbox for held messages. Two differences are worth knowing:
- Retrieval happens through the app over the internet, not by directly querying a mailbox. Some services allow message retrieval requests to be initiated from a radio, but those requests are still routed through an iGate and delivered over the internet.
- The sender does not receive a courtesy “recipient is offline, message held” response while you’re away. Your messages remain safely stored and waiting for retrieval; the sender simply is not notified that they have been held.