Reliable offline-first radio mail above an unmodified JS8Call instance.
JS8Mail is intended for dependable comms when Internet access is unavailable, including emergency and disaster scenarios. It keeps the mailbox, observations, routing decisions, retries, and audit history locally, then uses JS8Call for the actual RF modem and transmission. A message can be sent direct, relayed through stations suggested by observed RF evidence, or stored with a custodian for later collection.
Long messages are split into numbered JS8Mail parts for compatible peers. The receiver displays a useful partial message, marks missing parts, and can request only those parts again. Duplicate parts and receipts are safely ignored. A standard JS8Call recipient still receives readable ordinary text; enhanced JS8Mail framing is used only after the peer capability exchange proves support.
When an enhanced client later collects a message from a custodian, it can return a rate-limited JS8Mail capability and delivery-control notification toward the original sender using the recorded reverse path when available. These automatic exchanges are shown separately in the Outbox and are not themselves final delivery proof.
The project is early development and experimental. Delivery status is therefore carefully qualified: submission to JS8Call, a hop acknowledgement, custodian storage, and end-to-end JS8Mail delivery are different facts. Routing is progressive: a short direct reachability probe comes first, then current RF evidence, selective path discovery, alternative routes, bounded retries, and time-aware backoff. An optional, separate JS8Mail route-hints service can enhance local decisions with short-lived band-scoped reports from other stations. It is enabled by default and can be switched off in the UI. It never carries message content and is never required for RF operation.
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