Topic: Echolink App

[Celt]

 I was recently turned onto a new app I can use with an Android device and a myriad of others. It's called EchoLink, if you are a licensed HAM station operator you may want to give it a look. What it essentially does is enable you to get on any open repeater anywhere using your phone. You can also setup a conference type call using the repeaters. While many say this is cheating and that may be true in the purist standpoint, here are the direct benefits I see with this app. You have to register using your HAM license to use it (Instructions are very easy) on the app. It's still under FCC regs so you won't get the CB type mess like those airwave spammers on the Chicken Bands. You can talk to your buddies just about anywhere on 2M using your phone as your phone is now the radio station. Other benefits could be friends could be out away from cell phone range but you can still talk to them via a repeater anywhere in the world, so keeping in contact with them is now possible. Folks out to sea, friends or info on family who may be in a disaster area here at home or abroad, this is just a very cool app. Even just a little piece of mind is nice and thanks to repeater mapping apps you can pre-designate meet up frequencies or use the internet capabilities on some of your stations to call home and check in. Other thing is it's 100% free...


  Link: http://echolink.org/

[JFanaselle]

Most "purists" hate this kind of stuff because they don't like anything that gives people access without doing it the hard way like they do. People will make comments like "this makes it where people don't even know how to use a radio anymore." Some really old-school purists even hate the fact that you can program radios through PCs (the really, really old crusty Hams) . As you well know, most old-school Ham guys are all about keeping things nostalgic, so they hate to see complex systems that over-simplify the hobby for newbies. That being said, as you've stated, you (in theory) need a license before you would use something like this, so you (in theory) should already know how to use an actual radio before you start doing it on a phone.

Linking repeaters through the interwebs is a pretty cool piece of technology, and can accomplish a lot with very simple equipment. Many, many repeaters are now linkable through the web, and an app like this just takes it a single step further and allows you to access them through the web instead of using a radio as the first step in the process.

[Celt]

Joe, I completely agree.... I still prefer to try and learn the why and what with these radios and don't mind trying to do things the hard way in part of that learning process. Where I like to have these things as a backup is when there is an emergency and I need to get information out or in is important. In those situations I don't care if I can use a smoke signal, slow mule train or bongo drums in the congo getting help or being able to help someone is what's important. When I do my tech dives and I'm inside a wreck I use dive tables but it sure is nice to have that computer as a backup giving me second by second information that I use to cross check everything.