We disabled private messaging when we first opened the forum in the belief that some understandably shy users might choose to reply to questions or exchange information privately without posting to the forum. As a result this information would then be 'lost' to the majority of forum users.
However, pm can be very useful, especially for those users who prefer not to post an email address and therefore we've turned it on for a trial period. If you use pm for passing on information or asking questions please consider whether anyone else would benefit from your exchange and, if so, post it to the forum. Thank you.