arrl.net e-mail forwarding service

[kf6ueb]

I have heard that the ARRL e-mail forwarding service (yourcall@arrl.net) has been configured to forward only e-mail with single recipients. If the e-mail has "yourcall@arrl.net" along with other recipients as would be the case with the distribution of a club newsletter, arrl.net will not forward the e-mail.

Can anyone from ARRL confirm or deny this? If true, I question the value of this service. Also, if true, is any notification provided to the originator that the mail has been rejected?

What is the basis of such a policy? Are the arrl.net addresses targets of spammers?

73,

Rick

"When there is no communications infrastructure, the ham radio operator just became your best friend."

"Ham Radio - Does it get any better than this?"

[K4MSM]

Rick....

I'm not from ARRL, but I do use their fordwarding service. I just sent a test message with the 'ARRL address' and 2 others, all on the "TO" line. This test message was forwarded immediately by the ARRL server to my 'real' mailbox.

Charles

[kf6ueb]

Thanks, Charles - good test! I should have thought of that.

It is possible that there is some threshhold number of recipients over which the mail is not forwarded. ARRL, can you advise?

Thanks,

Rick

[K4MSM]

Rick.....

I copied the following from the ARRL site:

"Please Note: Forwarding to multiple e-mail addresses is not permitted."

Perhaps this is where the confusion lies. I believe the above statement means I can't have MY INCOMING email forwarded thru the ARRL server to more than one (1) of MY email addresses.

Charles

[KA8NCR]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (K4MSM @ July 25 2004,14:56)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Rick.....

I copied the following from the ARRL site:

&quot;Please Note: Forwarding to multiple e-mail addresses is not permitted.&quot;

Perhaps this is where the confusion lies. I believe the above statement means I can't have MY INCOMING email forwarded thru the ARRL server to more than one (1) of MY email addresses.

Charles[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
This is the correct answer.

SMTP MTAs do not _care_ what is in the &quot;To&quot; portion of the envelope of the email message because the MTA doesn't use that to determine the mailbox or forwarding address. The mailbox or forward is determined before the &quot;To&quot; field is even received; it's set by the &quot;rcpt to&quot; substate of the SMTP exchange.

The &quot;To&quot; line in the message envelope can contain a million addresses, or just one or even none. As far as the receiving MTA is concerned, it's just all part of one big glob of data.