03 EchoLink - Yeah, you should.
01/01/99 23:16
I’m not even sure where I first heard about EchoLink (www.echolink.org). I know that I installed it the day I got my license though - as I couldn’t validate my license with the system yet (which I could do the following day).
Obviously, the major information is on the EL web site. But long story short, EchoLink allows a licensed ham operator to connect to repeaters all over the world using a PC (or iPhone, iPad or Android) and an internet connection. In the case of phones, even a cellular connection is generally good enough.
If you’re not familiar, wrap your noggin around this — I can load EchoLink on my phone - anywhere - and connect to a local or remote repeater - and transmit from that repeater just as if I were a radio hitting that repeater.
I can be in Chicago and connect to a repeater in Sandton, South Africa - Wollongong, Australia - the Isle of Wright off the southern tip of England. I can be in the northwoods of Wisconsin and connect to my “home” repeater in Schaumburg, IL. Or I can be in Schaumburg and hit any one of a small bunch of repeaters up in northern Wisconsin. I can be in Springfield, IL and connect to a repeater in Springfield, CA. I can transmit on those repeaters and others on those repeaters can reply to me. How about St. Petersburg? Which one - Florida or Russia? Either one. You can talk to the world on a network of thousands of FM repeaters using EchoLink and all you need to do it is a valid amateur radio license and one of the aforementioned devices. You literally don’t even need a radio to do it.
It was one of the most mind-blowing things ever. “EchoLink DX-ing” as one of my ham friends calls it. “Cheating” as some others call it. Yes - there are some folks who don’t consider it “real amateur radio” and I can see their point. But it’s also A BLAST and that makes me not care what some others might have to say about it.
I can see how the fishing is up north. I can talk about COVID with people in Italy. I can have extended, sad conversations with people in crime-ridden areas. Sometimes, you run across people who need to vent and you need to listen. Sometimes you need to vent to someone other than the regular crowd on the local repeaters. Talk to the locals - they’ll almost certainly want to talk to you. It’s a “novelty” of sorts when a distant EchoLink station connects. Drop your call and approximate location right off the bat so they know what they’re dealing with. I normally say “N9IJS - John in Chicago, United States” and see if anyone answers. If they don’t, there’s probably no one listening.
HOWEVER — Be ready to talk. With a radio, you and the rest of your town can tune in and listen and no one knows you’re listening. With EchoLink, many (if not most) repeaters will “announce” your connection. So treat any connection as one where you just dropped your callsign and are waiting for a reply. You might have connected in the middle of an active QSO, you may have connected to a repeater with *0* active listeners - or anywhere in between. So be ready to talk. Be ready for questions. Be ready to ask questions. What seems very normal to you might be absolutely fascinating to someone in another country (and vice-versa). You might find that no matter where you go, everyone has the same sort of day-to-day issues. Everyone wants to talk about the weather. Some countries have rather specific protocols about dropping callsigns (here, it’s “now and again but for sure every 10 minutes and at the end of your QSO” while in others, it’s literally every transmission.
But - and this may just be my newb-ish exuberance - wow… You want to learn about the rest of the world? Talk to people all over the world. Get some of the lingo. Ask about the day-to-day. If it’s in a different hemisphere, keep in mind that when you’re going into summer, they’re going into winter. Talk about trees, talk about animals, talk about food, talk about anything. There’s an awful lot to learn. And EchoLink is a really cool tool to help with that.
I have “friends” around the globe thanks for EL. I’ve invited several of them to my “home” repeater and - as you’d probably expect - they’re backed-up with folks wanting to chat. Heck, there’s one or two that I can think of that probably spend more time on some of the local nets than I do. But I spend probably as much time on nets in the U.K. alone as I do in the U.S.
And for the naysayers who think that things like DMR and EchoLink “cheapens” HAM radio - all I can say is that EchoLink has me talking to other hams all over the world who I’d hardly ever have a chance to talk to on HF. And some of those operators now frequent some of my local repeaters regularly. That’s what it’s really all about. And if I finally ever get a “worthy” HF rig together, I have a stack of “target” stations to try to contact thanks to EchoLink.
NOTE: Originally posted in September of 2020 — Blog post date has been tweaked to force position in listing.
Obviously, the major information is on the EL web site. But long story short, EchoLink allows a licensed ham operator to connect to repeaters all over the world using a PC (or iPhone, iPad or Android) and an internet connection. In the case of phones, even a cellular connection is generally good enough.
If you’re not familiar, wrap your noggin around this — I can load EchoLink on my phone - anywhere - and connect to a local or remote repeater - and transmit from that repeater just as if I were a radio hitting that repeater.
It was one of the most mind-blowing things ever. “EchoLink DX-ing” as one of my ham friends calls it. “Cheating” as some others call it. Yes - there are some folks who don’t consider it “real amateur radio” and I can see their point. But it’s also A BLAST and that makes me not care what some others might have to say about it.
I can see how the fishing is up north. I can talk about COVID with people in Italy. I can have extended, sad conversations with people in crime-ridden areas. Sometimes, you run across people who need to vent and you need to listen. Sometimes you need to vent to someone other than the regular crowd on the local repeaters. Talk to the locals - they’ll almost certainly want to talk to you. It’s a “novelty” of sorts when a distant EchoLink station connects. Drop your call and approximate location right off the bat so they know what they’re dealing with. I normally say “N9IJS - John in Chicago, United States” and see if anyone answers. If they don’t, there’s probably no one listening.
But - and this may just be my newb-ish exuberance - wow… You want to learn about the rest of the world? Talk to people all over the world. Get some of the lingo. Ask about the day-to-day. If it’s in a different hemisphere, keep in mind that when you’re going into summer, they’re going into winter. Talk about trees, talk about animals, talk about food, talk about anything. There’s an awful lot to learn. And EchoLink is a really cool tool to help with that.
I have “friends” around the globe thanks for EL. I’ve invited several of them to my “home” repeater and - as you’d probably expect - they’re backed-up with folks wanting to chat. Heck, there’s one or two that I can think of that probably spend more time on some of the local nets than I do. But I spend probably as much time on nets in the U.K. alone as I do in the U.S.
And for the naysayers who think that things like DMR and EchoLink “cheapens” HAM radio - all I can say is that EchoLink has me talking to other hams all over the world who I’d hardly ever have a chance to talk to on HF. And some of those operators now frequent some of my local repeaters regularly. That’s what it’s really all about. And if I finally ever get a “worthy” HF rig together, I have a stack of “target” stations to try to contact thanks to EchoLink.
NOTE: Originally posted in September of 2020 — Blog post date has been tweaked to force position in listing.