United Kingdom Internet Radio Linking Group

 

 

There are now more than 370 gateways (nodes) in eleven countries around the world that are connected to the IRLP project with more coming on daily. (Japan and the Philippines will be on soon)

Within the UK there are currently eleven nodes, of these six are situated in South Yorkshire, one is located in Manchester, one in Burnley Lancashire, one in Southport, one in Castle Douglas, Scotland, and one in London.

Two more nodes will be coming online very soon, one of these is located at Melton Mowbray and the other will be in Edinburgh.

So What Is IRLP

IRLP is a system of communication which enables contacts to be made with other Amateur Radio Stations throughout the World by using simple low power equipment such as a handheld radio and although IRLP uses the internet as a vehicle to transport the signal around the World, access into the system cannot be gained from the Internet, but only by Amateur Radio Equipment.

How Does It Work

Basically the requirements to set up a node are a link radio on the 2 metre or 70 cms amateur bands which is linked into a computer running the IRLP software on Redhat linux 6.2 and a link to the Internet through an ISP, additionally an simple interface board is used to interface the radio to the computer (the board must be purchased from IRLP in Canada)

The link radio can operate either as a simplex node or through a repeater and although a wide bandwidth link to the Internet is preferred so that the node can then connect to Reflectors (conference rooms) along with many other simplex and repeaters nodes throughout the world, a simple dial up connection on a standard BT line is adequate, however, connections to the Reflectors on anything other than wide bandwidth is not permitted.

(Note that all a user needs to work the system is an RX/TX on the right frequency and a method of generating DTMF tones)

To access any of the repeaters that are connected first you need to dial the 3-digit DTMF node access number this will be followed by a zero to turn the link on and a 1 to turn it off.

For example to call McMurdor Base Antarctica dial 8880 and to turn the link off dial 8881

For a list of frequencies and times when the links are available in the UK and a full list of all the world wide nodes visit http://www.qsl.net/g3zhi/syirlp or send an sae to Ian Abel G3ZHI, 52 Hollytree Ave Maltby Rotherham Yorkshire S66 8DY.

DTMF keypads are available for £2.00 each + 50 p.p.

For more information call G3ZHI 01709 799911 or 07748928916 or email [email protected] or visit the website at http://www.qsl.net/g3zhi, for a full list of all nodes go to link 137, or connect to the main IRLP site http://www.irlp.net and follow the links to the "active node status".

If you need help call the node owner on the link frequency and he will be able to help you. Please check first that the link is not being used.

Please give you call sign before sending DTMF tones on the IRLP link frequency.