Digital from New England to Europe; your thoughts on the best ways?

[slm]

Greetings! I hope some folks here on the net can offer some suggestions,
advice, and opinions on the following ``problem.''

I am in New England, and want to send a digital message to a friend in
Slovenia. Alas, he has no Internet connection :-) ... but he is on
``regular'' (i.e. AX.25) packet.

I have been simply writing my messages on my local BBS (K1UGM), which
forwards them to a regional hub in New Hampshire, which then ships them via
AMTOR to a system in Croatia (which is down a fair amount), which then
forwards them to Slovenia. This can take less than a day with a lot of luck;
it also can (and often has) take longer than postal mail.

I'm trying to figure out what might be faster and still reliable, and have
been thinking about the following:

* TCP/IP. I hear some folks are experimenting with ``encapsulating'' TCP/IP
ham messages in Internet to get them ``over the pond,'' which seems nice,
fast, and reliable (no worries about solar flares). However, my friend on the
other side isn't on TCP/IP (actually, neither am I yet, although I will make
the effort to set up and learn if it seems it will be worthwhile). Could
this still work? Are there gateways I could use to send messages reasonably
fast to Europe? Could I realistically (not awfully slow) telnet via
TCP/IP into a BBS in Europe to forward a message? Can I send a TCP/IP
message here and have it get reasonably fast to an AX.25 system in Europe?

* Routing AX.25 through NY. Most international traffic in New England is
routed through the hub in NH. However, from what I've read, it looks like
New York has a very nice gateway into London; and WA2NDV forwards ``twice
hourly.'' I tried getting into WA2NDV myself via 2m AX.25; but through
4 digipeaters, it is too slow to be worthwhile. What about sending a
message on my local 2m AX.25 board and somehow routing it to go through
WA2NDV? Can I do this--tell a message on a BBS how I want it routed?
Would I then I need to know an entire path also from London to Slovenia?
[Please excuse me if these questions seem painfully
elementary, but I'm curious and don't know]

* AMTOR myself to 9A0APL. I've never used AMTOR but have the capability
(PK-232). Perhaps it's worthwhile to send my mail myself to 9A0APL via
AMTOR, instead of having the NH hub do it for me? Could I sign onto the
system myself and send a message to forward somewhere else, like on a packet
BBS?

* Internet/packet gateway? There's such a thing in the States, I know; but
is it possible to send an Internet message to a system in Europe that would
then put it back into the packet system there?

* Any other ideas? (i.e. HF packet, which I heard is terribly slow, or
something else)

Thanks for your thoughts. Although what I have been doing (using the local
2m BBS) has been working, I'd really like to know more about this than just
posting on a local BBS and having the messages eventually arrive, "somehow,"
to their destination.

73, Sharon KC1YR

--
electronic address: s...@world.std.com