What is ilink? Here's Graeme: Having tried many ways of linking radio to the internet - I decided that it must have a few basic services. Users must be able to use it on a pc connected to the internet in a easy to use interface, showing which stations are active and where. Mobiles must have control over the link and be able to switch links quickly. There must be basic security features to enable logout, callsign verification and blacklist registration. The only system that came close was the IRLP project, but this did not allow users to access from the internet at all, and needs Linux to be installed - which I dont think many of us really want to do just to run a basic link , so iLINK was born in MAY 2001! Hopefully both systems will be able to run side by side as IRLP is 100% secure repeater linking. There are now many repeaters/links on the system. If you would like to set up a link or access to your local repeater goto the repeater keepers page. The software is easy to build or can be ordered ready built. Graeme, M0CSH.

Here's what Bob Nagy set up on the 442.15 repeater in Austin: Bob sez: We are proud to announce that we are the first repeater in Austin to feature the new ILINK Internet linking system. It was implemented this week after a few days of fabrication and de-bugging of the micro-controller interface board. Here is the hardware: Basically, it is a NEC P-I 266 laptop on a 100 base T ethernet connection -running into the PIC microcontroller interface- which feeds a T-81a HT -powered by a lambda switching PS. The stubby duck only has to cover 1000 ft to the repeater down the block. The docs are really bad on this stuff, so it was not fun getting it going. The codes are as follows: 00 Random connection to simplex station 01 Random connection to Repeater -not recommended 05 Kill Ilink for 10 minutes * Play Ilink announcement # kill Ilink connection Protocall is as follows: If you hear the female announcer (at our plush studios high atop the quad towers) say "Connected" -that means an incoming station is connecting..please standby to listen for their incoming call. Turn-around is slower than a local QSO..so act like this is HF..take it slow. You will hear an obnoxious noise (ever changing) when they drop carrier. Keep your audio punchy and continuous... as we are on VOX going out. If you pause for more than 1 second, it will drop. To test if the system is on-line, hit the star. Before you hit 00, hit # to make sure the system is hung up from the last QSO. To get the software- go to www.aacnet.net. It's free! (the hardware costs though) This is a totally open system -as this is our policy. Please use it as if it was your own. Bob - AB5N - Trustee

Topic 37 of 53: 'Hawaii' Resp 307 of 307: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) Sun, Jun 9, 2002 (06:09) 15 lines I made contact with someone on Oahu, Art Neilson, his call is WH7N. We have a lot in common, he's a Sun administrator who is also in to FreeBSD. Website: http://www.pilikia.net/ We had a great QSO (conversation in hamtalk) on echolink this morning. I mentioned the geo conference and the wonderful work Marci is doing with her reportage of the Hawaii seismic/geologic scene. I recommend the "Hiking Photos" if you're interested in the Oahu back country! These are some great shots of natural areas.

There has been a recent change in the configuration of the "addressing" servers on which EchoLink depends. When you start the program, you may receive a message about configuration changes. If you are using a version of EchoLink prior to 1.1.609, please make the following change to your configuration: From the Tools menu, choose Setup. Click the Servers tab. In the first box (marked Pref 1), enter the following: server1.echolink.org In the second box (marked Pref 2), enter the following: server2.echolink.org In the third box (marked Pref 3), enter the following: server3.echolink.org In the fourth box (marked Pref 4), enter the following: server4.echolink.org Click OK to close the window. Press the F5 key to refresh the station list. After a moment, the station list should appear. The correct settings are shown below. Thanks for your patience. Note: The names server1.echolink.org, etc. are generic names to allow dynamic server configuration via DNS. They are not meant to imply that EchoLink is operating or maintaining these servers.

New features of the 1.1.609 EchoLink Version: Current Version: 1.1.609 1.1.609 (June 8, 2002) Changed to generic names for default servers. Corrected two display issues in Conference mode. Added "accept-only callsigns" security option. Added name of conference host (after callsign) to conference status list. Eliminated certain additional conference-loop scenarios.

This morning's connection: ah6ja harvey instructor at univ of hawaii electronics irlp node using this in the local communication network. motomura@hawaii.edu

Tony, VK3ATR (ilink 24344) has a 17 acre ranch at Mt disappointment near Melbourne Australia (at the bottom end of Australia). VK3ZTR Tony on a 17 acre ranch ilink: 24344. He worked in Boston, MA. He's in the computer business, rolling out Penpad devices for Australia's largest bank. Company's trying to move him to a new location, but he's resisting this. He might take his 6 months leave and find some contract work. He's great at product post-design. n0zpd www.qsl.net/n0zpd allows you to listen without talking with a reduced quality audio. It allows swl (short wave listeners) to listen in on ilink qso's. From Tony Wakefield's web page: http://home.primus.com.au/tonywakefield/ My interests include Ham Radio VK3ZTR (Voice and Packet radio), Electronics, Computing, Art-Painting and Stock market. I used to live in Nottingham(Kinoulton) UK and held the callsign of G8ATQ for 20 years. Suzy my partner in life and I own a small farm in Upper Plenty 50Km north of Melbourne Australia. I have worked in the computer industry for the last 32 years. Suzy is in to art and pottery.

Note: My email address has changed to mailto:tonywakefield@iprimus.com.au tonywakefield@iprimus.com.au

That's Tony downing the pint of best bitter. His favorite tv show is "Heartbeat". He socializes with the stars in the series and stays in England at the series location.

Hi, Paul corrections Tony, VK3ATR (ilink 24344) has a 17 acre farm at Mt disappointment near Melbourne Australia (at the bottom end of Australia). VK3ZTR Tony on a 17 acre farm ilink: 24344. He worked in Boston, MA. He's in the computer business, rolling out Pin Pad devices for Australia's largest retailer. Company's trying to move him to a new location, but he's resisting this. He might take his 6 months leave and find some contract work. He's great at product post-design. M0ZPD www.qsl.net/m0zpd allows you to listen without talking with a reduced quality audio. It allows swl (short wave listeners) to listen in on ilink qso's.

He likes a little place there called Palm Cove, which has a nice beach. Cooks Highway runs along the beaches near him. Sounds like a nice place to vacation. He'd like to retire there and sell goods to the tourists.

Hi Terry couple of more corrections. The Call is VK3ZTR. Palm Cove is 3000Km 1400 miles from here in Northern Queensland just north of Cains http://www.pdis.com.au/page5.html will give you a list of many sites in this area, enjoy the pictures. Nice to make contact today via EchoLink. Tony

Hi EQSO is a great progam for the SWL who can speak in the rooms as long as a repeater or a link stion is not in that room. I wonder who Tony VK3ZTR likes best in Heatbeat ?

Greetings Joe Nice to meet you via ilink yesterday. I will be visiting the repeater now a bit more to visit and also hear what pontifications the great sage has to say. 73 de AA9IL Mike

Hi Mike

Hi Mike Yes it was Nice meeting you on the riff raff repeater last night I have my mat on the floor pointing to the center of the universe AUSTIN waiting for more teachings from the great SAGE GEORGE. Hope to see you soon Joe G0PWE

Hi Joe As I said yesterday, you had Screaming Lord Such on the radio and we have George. 73 de Mike HF gear in use: Hammarlund SP600 Collins R390A Racal RA17L

I fed some lines to Joe to pass on to George today. Like "hook em horns"; can you imagine that from an Englishman?

Talked to Joe, Mark and Debra today on Echolink. Mark's got to poke a couple of holes through his Linux firewall to get online.

Has it finally come? Linux Echolink? What is theBridge? Thebridge is an iLink/EchoLink compatible conference bridge that runs under FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Windows and hopefully most other Posix compatible operating systems. If you've never hear of iLink or EchoLink then this software probably won't make much sense to you. See: www.aacnet.net for iLink and www.synergenics.com for EchoLink then if you are still interested continue here. Features Compiles and runs on FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, QNX and Windows. Daemon mode program with logging to syslog. Forwards voice and text mode packets to conference members. Displays members list with indication of who's talking. Use GNU autoconfig tools for portability. Provides test feature to assist users with level settings. FAQ Q: How many users does thebridge support? A: That depends primarily on your connection to the Internet. There are no preset limits on the number of users other than the setting of MaxConferenceClients in the configuration file. Approximently 17k bits per second of bandwidth are consumed outbound per user. Since the usual case is that only one single user is talking at a time the inbound bandwidth requirements are must less. The current documented record user count is 63 on the K5JD server during the 9/11 commemorative net. With 63 users the bandwidth was 1076k bits/second. Q: Is there a Windows version? A: Yes. This question probably means you think thebridge is a DOS program and are asking if a typical Windows graphical version of thebridge is available. The answer to that question is no. Thebridge is designed to be portable and runs under FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Qnx, and yes Windows (but not DOS). I am NOT planning on creating a Windows specific version that provides a more typical GUI. Q: Is there any sound support, can I listen to the conference while I run thebridge? A: Sorry No. Currently thebridge only deals with the data at the packet level, what comes in goes right back out. The data is never decoded into audio. Thebridge is designed primarily to be a system daemon, that is a background system process that just runs QUIETLY in the background. You'll need a client program *and* multiple external IP addresses to be able to listen to thebridge. Q: How come none of the commands work? When I type on the keyboard nothing happens! A: The commands are entered from the EchoLink client on the message line, not from the host. i.e. The commands are for remote use (both by users and administrators). Unfortunately if you are running thebridge locally and only have a single IP address there's no way for you to connect to thebridge using EchoLink. You can't even run EchoLink on the same host as thebridge. Thebridge is really designed to be run as a daemon under FreeBSD or Linux. I need to do some more work to make it a bit more friendly to a Windows user. Q: How come none of the commands work? I AM typing the commands on the message line! A: All commands start with a period or dot. In addition the dot *MUST* be the very first character on the line. Try entering .Help, that is help. The commands work, honest! Commands were done this way to prevent interference with message line traffic. Q: The instructions say to find the file thebridge.dsp and double click on it but there is not any such file can you help me? A: Read the README a little slower next time. "If you've downloaded the prebuilt version of thebridge (thebridge-x.xx-exe.zip) the following has already been done for you. Skip on to configuration..." If you don't have thebridge.dsp you have downloaded the .ZIP file containing the prebuilt executables for Windows. If you want to compile thebridge from source download thebridge-x.xx.tgz instead. You will also need to have Microsoft Visual Studio installed on your system for double clicking on thebridge.dsp to work. Q: Who uses thebridge ? A: A survey conducted on 10/30/02 found 30 groups running thebridge, 19 running on Windows, 10 running on Linux and one running on FreeBSD. The record uptime was 29 days which is very close to the length of time that the version of thebridge they were running had been released. Details are available. Q: How do you debug thebridge ? A: I use an automatic source code inspection system to check my code before attempting to debug it. The code anomaly trapper (CAT) finds the majority of the bugs before I run it. If you don't have one I highly recommend that you download one. Wish List Time stamps for every message line - Rex, ORLANDO conference. Log the station call signs that log in and out - Rex, ORLANDO conference. {This capability is already present in the *nix versions via the syslog facility. The Windows version doesn't currently create disk logs} A way to 'allow' only certain stations to connect to the conference - John KR0Y. [Added in Version 0.42] Delay the packet transfer in the beginning of each key up lets say for 1-2 seconds to prevent bounce? Maybe a toggle with a milisecond control for the admin.... - Len N2Len [Added in version 0.37] Enable/disable the .lurk feature - NE2EI + a crowd of others. [Added in version 0.37] from http://cqinet.sourceforge.net/thebridge.shtml