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New Providence Amateur Radio Club
   The  Radio Club of the Watchung Hills Area

EchoLink

 EchoLink is a ham-only Windows1 program which uses a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Perhaps the easiest way to describe EchoLink is to say it's a way of making a free internet phone call -- from one computer to another. With an internet connection plus a microphone and speaker for your computer, you're in business. And the audio is remarkable very good.

On the face of it, EchoLink may not appear to be 'ham radio' since it's internet based, but it does provide these enhancements:

bulletsince it's 'ham only', you are assured of talking to someone who is in the hobby
bulletwhen an HF connection isn't possible, you can still talk with a ham friend anywhere in the world. Even Tech No-Code hams without HF privileges can now "DX" and talk with distant hams.

But even more exciting is EchoLink's ability to use the computer's sound card and a special cable to link to an amateur radio. This provides an RF-to-internet link. Think of it as a telephone auto patch which uses the internet instead of a phone line. Utilizing a station that has implemented this cross-link, you could:   

bulletconnect to a distant repeater or simplex frequency from your keyboard. In fact, we've used this to allow hams at their keyboards in Florida and New Mexico to check into the NPARC Sunday night net on the Whippany repeater (more info)
bulletfrom your radio, talk to a distant at his keyboard or even on his radio. Imagine driving in New Providence and talking on your 2 meter radio to a ham driving in Nevada (or California or Australia) on his 2 meter radio with the internet providing the long haul link (more info about such a link in New Providence).

To find out more about downloading and setting up EchoLink, visit the EchoLink Setup page on this site.

After you've experimented with EchoLink awhile, you may want to link your radio to the EchoLink program with a sound card interface. If you do, go to the SysOp Setup page for advice and hints.

1 Note that while EchoLink is "Windows only", Scott KC2FWX has been experimenting with a UNIX version. If you'd like more information on his progress,  email Scott.   As far as I know, there is no Mac version of EchoLink.

KC2RLM

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