Echolink update

KB1FSO recently took a trip to Tampa, Florida. This brought up the idea of making contact with home and participating in the on the air meeting. As an experiment, I connected Echolink to the 146.940- repeater. My initial concerns about the repeater tail and DTMF access quickly disappeared. The connection works well and does not interfere with the autopatch. Licensed hams can now make world wide contacts on the 146.940- repeater. A special thanks to KB1HBD, Steve from Turner, Maine and NG1P, Bill, from Tampa, Florida. They both joined the on the air meeting 10AUG2004 and demonstrated the seamless integration of echolink and the 146.940- repeater.

Here is a brief explanation of the DTMF commands for the 146.940- repeater.

To make a local phone call, dial 99(the number)*. You will hear ascending tones which tells you the call is going through. You may also hear the message, "not found." This is echolink telling that the phone number you entered is not a valid node. Disregard this message. At the completion of your call, dial # to disconnect the autopatch. Echolink will also respond with a disconnect announcement. The * command is an autopatch command. Please don’t use it as an echolink command. 911* will connect you to the State Police business line. It will not provide any E911 location info because the autopatch controller changes your "911" to a seven digit number before dialing. The State Police can forward your call to the appropriate public safety dispatch center.

Using echolink: If a station calls, you can answer them just like a local station. If you want to initiate an echolink contact, you have several choices. Dial 00 to make a random connection to one of stations currently logged into the system. You can also dial the node number of a particular station. Dial 08 and echolink will identify the current connection. Please dial 08 before trying to connect to hear if the link is in use.

There are a few tricks to make using the system more enjoyable. First, be patient. There is an internet delay for both your traffic heading out and for the returning traffic to reach you. Echolink has a courtesy beep at the end of each transmission. Sometimes, echolink will key up again with a repeater tail. Don’t respond immediately after the courtesy beep to ensure that your transmission is not doubling with the system. Second, when initiating a connection with 00 or the node number, echolink will respond with several messages. The messages are, "ConnectING"; "ConnectED"; "Not found"; or "Access denied." After the connected announcement, there may be an announcement or traffic from the connected station. If you transmit immediately, you will double with this message. Third, keep your DTMF transmissions short. In other words, don’t press the number keys for a long time. The tone decoder may recognize a long tone as several digits and misinterpret your instructions.

The * command is an autopatch command. Don’t use it for echolink. If you do, the autopatch tries to interpret and execute you request.

At the conclusion of your contact you may use the # command to drop the link. Echolink will respond with, "Disconnected." Enjoy.