It is currently deployed at Montycopa hooked to a 6m antenna.  Ed KD7YAT will be building a J Pole for it later so we can take advantage of the 10m side.

Echolink nodes KE7JVX-L and KE7JVX-R are now limited to an approve list.  If you receive a “Not Authorized” message when you try to connect, send me an email (monty at ke7jvx.com) and I will put you on the approved list.

Had some router issues at Casa Grande site, something with DD-WRT and PPPoE.  But its all resolved and now linked back in.

Well sad day in Montycopa… Due to the massive storm that Montycopa head on July 5th, my tower fell and had to be cut down.  Now I have more reason to put up my 90 foot free standing Rohn 🙂

On July 4th I put up the Access Point end of a path from my friend’s house in Casa Grande and pointed to the other end being Sacaton Peak.  The other end was already up on Sacaton from the link to Tempe Freescale Tower 444.275 used to live in.  Amazingly enough with the antenna on Sacaton pointing 90 degrees off, they still connected!

Here’s a map I made of the working Packet radios around Arizona.

View Arizona Packet Radio in a larger map

Echolink is very fun, and easy. You can start with just a headset and a computer.

First Step

Go to Echolink.org and download the program. Register, and get going making contacts, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!!! I like Echolink for this fact, that you can talk around the world on your laptop. And when you are in the middle of where there is no repeater, but have internet access, you can talk to your friends.

Second Step

After you have fun talking with your computer, you might want to experiment with hooking a radio to your computer through some type of interface. You would simply use a simplex frequency and you can control echolink on your computer, through the DTMF on your other radio. Pretty cool! You can buy a interface, there links on Echolink.org , or build you own.

Building your own interface
There are quite a few plans out there, one that is close to what I built is K0KN’s.

Last Step

Make your own repeater! And interface a Echolink node into the mix.

Other VOIP Interests

AllStar Link-Linux based, Full Duplex, and built on the popular Asterisk PBX.
IRLP-Linux based, very nice interface. I like the idea of a onboard DTMF decoder. And some nodes are capable of Echolink aswell (EchoIRLP).
TheLinkBox-Linux Based, make your own interface, capable of Echolink, IRLP, and now AllStar

It’s APCO for hams! It is really cool. You can surf the web, check email, TXT message, send your postition, and much more, ALL DIGITALLY! And listening to it on Analog is cool.

D-PRS

It is like APRS, but Digital, Duh… Right? I would say it is much easier, than APRS in the way that you don’t have to buy a TNC. All you need is a GPS receiver, and make/buy a cable. Most D-Star radios have a diagram in the manual. Program in a few GPS sentences, aquire GPS signal, and your ready.

D-Chat

There are a couple of them out there, but I believe this is the most common one. TXT messaging from computer to computer. You can also TXT just from the radio too.