The Lunar AMHS Terminal is an ICAO SARPs compliant X.400 User Agent, which allows end users to connect to the AMHS to send and receive ATC messages. It has been specifically designed with the needs of ATS operators in mind, providing a full set of ICAO 4444 forms, plus AIS and MET forms.

Account Editor
Account Manager
Bodypart Editor
Contact Directory
Contact Editor
DLA Form Editor
FPL Form Editor
Main Window
X400 Message Properties

As an X.400 User Agent, it can also be used to send and receive free text messages, including attachments and multiple body parts.

Running under many operating systems, the AMHS Terminal presents a consistent Graphical User Interface design.

General features

  • Use of advanced features of the X.400 P7 protocol, such as auto alerts and Message Store filters.
  • Local message caching to prevent fetching repeated messages and to avoid loading the Message Store.
  • HTML support in X.400
  • Contact manager with tags for favourite users, access to the ATN X.500 Directory for address browsing and synchronization, local user groups, AFTN/AMHS Address Conversion and many other features.
  • Configurable sources of Static Information, including Aerodrome Location Indicators, FIRs, Aircraft Types and their WTC.
  • Also supports POP, IMAP, and SMTP, with SSL and STARTTLS.
  • Supports multiple accounts, of any type, at the same time, so it’s ideal for environments where computers are shared by several users.
  • Sorting of messages in a folder ( Subject, Sender, Recipient, and size).
  • Drag and drop of messages to folders.
  • Multi-language interface (English and Spanish by default, more can be added).
  • Filtering of messages based on message properties.
  • Powerful search capabilities, based on multiple search criteria on message properties and content.
  • Support for sending X.400 Probes.
  • Support for SSL over X.400 P7 (ITOTS), to connect directly to, for example, Business Mail X.400 Mailbox.
  • Automatically updates the Filing Time on content changes.
  • Support for saving and editing draft messages, which can be used as templates for new messages.
  • Built-in Log Viewer, where all the activity of the program can be reviewed.
  • Configurable date formats.
  • Detailed message properties analyzer for X.400 messages.
  • Auto Processing of messages. A feature that enables the administrator to define one or more Auto Processing rules, so that matching messages are deleted, moved to a folder, printed, etc. Rules can be set to pass a specific message match criterion.

Aviation-specific features

  • Creation of ICAO 4444 messages using familiar forms for: FPL, SPL, ARR, DEP, CNL, DLA, RQS, RQP, CHG, CPL, EST, CND, ACP, ALR, RCF, and SPL.
  • Creation of MET messages using forms, like METAR, TAF, SPECI, SIGMET, AIRMET, RQM, RQX, AD WRNG, WS WRNG, etc
  • Creation of AIS messages using forms, like NOTAM, NOTAM Proposals, SNOWTAM GRF, ASHTAM
  • Flexible AFTN ↔ AMHS address conversion, using either an ICAO compliant X.500 ATN Directory or the AMC Tables with conversion information.
  • Supports both ICAO XF and CAAS addressing schemes.
  • Support of the generation and reception of messages in both Basic Encoding and Extended Encoding.
  • Supports all the Extended ATS Message Handling Service functional groups – Basic + IHE + DIR + FTBP + SEC.
  • [FTBP] Supports the use of File Transfer Bodyparts, to handle message attachments. This can be used, for example, to send and receive METAR, SPECI and TAF messages using the BUFR format.
  • Creation of AMHS messages with IWXXM content complying with the AMHS profile for IWXXM exchange. It can also create Digital NOTAM, Digital FPL, Digital MET, etc.
  • [IHE] Support of the generation and reception of messages with IPM Heading Extensions
  • [DIR] Supports the use of Directory to access the X.500 ATN Directory to search for users and determine their capabilities, for example, if they support IHE or FTBP for AFTN ↔ AMHS address conversion.
  • [SEC] Support for the SEC functional group
  • Digital Signatures to verify the originator of a message
  • MOAC (Message Origin Authentication and Content Integrity) to verify that the message has not been corrupted or tampered with in transit.

Connectivity

The connection to the AMHS Switch can be achieved through the use of the standard Internet Protocol (IP) sockets, or by using the full OSI stack to connect to an ATN Router. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are supported. The messaging protocols that are supported are: X.400 P3, X.400 P7, AFTN, SMTP, IMAP, and POP. The directory protocols that are supported are: X.500 DAP and LDAP

Availability

The Lunar AMHS Terminal runs on Windows (versions supported include 2016 Server, 2019 Server, 2022 Server, 10 and 11), and also on Linux (Redhat 7 and 8, Ubuntu, and other similar Open Source operating systems), as a Unix Service.

Conformance

ICAO Conformance
  • ICAO Doc 9880, Second Edition – 2016
  • ICAO Doc 4444
  • Extended ATS Message Handling Services
  • ATS Messaging Management Manual (Eur Doc 021)
  • EUR AMHS Manual, version 16.0 (Eur Doc 020)
X.400 Conformance
  • ISO/IEC ISP 10611-4:2003 / AMH12-MTS Access (P3)
  • ISO/IEC ISP 10611-6: 2003 / AMH13-MS Access (P7)
Internet Conformance
  • RFC 2126, RFC 4511 among others