flamp ("fast light Amateur Multicast Protocol") works with fldigi to receive and transmit files, using enhanced checksum methods to facilitate character-perfect file reception. Part of the NBEMS suite, it works in conjunction with the suite's core component, fldigi. When flamp manages the transmission of files by fldigi, it breaks the files into blocks and applies a checksum to each. A station that fails to receive the file in perfect condition can easily report back to the sender, or to any other station, which block(s) were not received correctly. The sender, or any other station that correctly received that block, can easily re-transmit only the requested block(s). flamp will correctly assemble the original file from the blocks received. flamp can manage the transmission and reception of any file, text or binary, including but not limited to flmsg files.
Cross-platform installation files for flamp are available from:
Download the flamp installation file for your computer operating system and save it on your computer. Run that file to install the application; it will install like any application on your operating system.
Now launch flamp as you would any newly-installed application.
With flamp open, click the Receive tab. On this tab, check the "Auto save on 100% reception" checkbox.
Now click the Configure tab to open it. This tab offers many choices. As you read the Users Manual and use flamp with fldigi, you will develop an operating style that works for you, and you will likely change your mind about some of these choices. During this course, though, in order to make your flamp installation behave like the course's description of it, I suggest that you make these choices:
Regarding each of the checkboxes, from top to bottom:
One result of these settings is that a transmission that you initiate with flamp will always be in the operating mode to which fldigi is set. Therefore, it's necessary to look in only one place to find out what will happen when you press the button!
You can always launch flamp as you launch any other application on your system, but you may wish to have flamp started automatically every time you launch fldigi. To enable that in fldigi, use Configure|Config Dialog to open the Fldigi configuration dialog box. Open "Misc~Autostart". Press the "Locate" button in the row that begins with the label "flamp:" and use the "Locate executable" dialog box to locate the installed flamp executable file, which in Windows is flamp.exe. Its typical installation location in Windows is C:\Program Files (x86)\flamp-nnnnn\flamp.exe, where nnnnn is the version number. Once you have located it, select it (by clicking on it) and press the dialog box's Open button. On that same row, check the checkbox in the "Enable" column. (If flamp is running at this point, close it!) Now press the "Test" button on that same row, and flamp should start. If all is well, press the Save button to save your configuration changes and the Close button to close the Configuration dialog box.
The auto-start specification uses the specific filepath of the flamp executable, and the filepath includes the version number. Therefore, you must return to this configuration step in fldigi and update it each time you update the flamp application to a new version.
The "FLAMP Users Manual", the full documentation of the program, is available by using "Help|On Line help" within flamp; it will launch in your Web browser.