[Lowfer] Reminder- Attachmnt+message size limit 50KB

[Douglas H Reed]

Just another reminder that QSL.net limits the total message size to
50KB, including any attachments. Several people had messages bounce
last night because of the limit and a couple of them were right around
56KB and I'll bet they are a little confused about what happened.

The essential problem is that email is a 7-bit ASCII format while
image file attachments are 8-bit binary. Your email program will
automatically convert binary files into a special format using just
ASCII text characters, but when this happens, the file size grows by
about 12%. Essentially, the email program takes every 7 extra bits and
stuffs them into an extra ASCII character in the text. I expect the
problem is even worse if your email program is sending HTML text or
using UTF-8 or other international character formats. Those formats
are all larger than plain ASCII text.

If you want to attach a file to your email, I recommend you try to
edit it down to 40KB or less before you attach it. I also recommend
you ALWAYS choose "plain text" format when composing any email to the
QSL.net remailers. Many email programs have a configuration option
that can be set for each destination address that says what email
format to use for that destination.

Have a Happy New Year!

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.
LOWFER volunteer list admin.