The sheffieldarc domain is now offline until our new hosting company picks the domain back up again over the coming few days. Meanwhile, the website still remains here on my own domain, and you can easily find it on google.

Steve M1ERS
Chairman Sheffield Amateur Radio Club

Pete would you please re publish this in the forum section in Obits, then we will have this great story for all time.

I am not trying to put down these modes or those who use them. I’m just trying to get you to realise the actual situation regarding them ‘vis-a-vis’ amateur radio as a few of you seem to equate a simulated radio front panel on a computer screen with the one on a real radio set

Echolink via PC to PC does not involved an amateur radio transceiver or repeater and contacts made this way are therefore not bona fide amateur radio contacts as no RF is involved.(Read your A.R licence from Ofcom!) I have such contacts on a regular basis but I never log them and don’t use callsigns during the conversation apart from clicking on them to access friends when they appear on the computer screen. I never regard them as amateur radio contacts (QSOs).

Echolink via a repeater at one or both ends IS amateur radio because RF on an amateur band is involved. When I work this way I do log them as radio QSOs via whichever repeater is used. For example, I sometimes work Ross,ZL1BGB, on Echolink using my PC to access the ZL1VK repeater in Auckland, NZ. My pal accesses this via his radio … so that’s an amateur radio contact. Until GB3US lost it’s IRLP facility I occasionally worked another NZ pal, Brian, ZL2BPG, via GB3US and across to the Mt Climie Repeater in the North Island. I counted these QSOs as radio ones and they are in my log IRLP is definitely amateur radio.

However, I class PC to PC Echolink the same as Skype since they both use VOIP. Skype is much better as the video is better and I can conference up to 12 people at the same time and everything is full DUPLEX. PC to PC Echolink can’t do this. The Echolink requirement for an amateur licence is irrelevant as this is not a LEGAL requirement laid down by Ofcom. If the Skype owners had said to use it you had to prove you paid a BT telephone bill you’d laugh at them! The licence requirement for Echolink is to stop unlicenced people accessing the amateur band repeaters via echolink so in that respect it’s essential but it still doesn’t make PC to PC contacts amateur radio!

The fact that radio amateurs developed echolink doesn’t not mean that the system is wholly amateur radio. Amateurs have developed lots of softwares to be used in amateur radio systems but software is computer technology, not RF technology. The radio bit comes in when there is transmitting RF and receiving RF involved.

Operating a remote radio station via the internet IS real amateur radio and is an exciting and progressive aspect that I’m very interested in. If we had a remotely operated system at our club then those of you who are temporarily without your own transceiver could access and operate the club equipment via your computer. Here again we have RF involved!

So, to clear your minds again:

I am not trying to insult users of this VOIP system

… I use it myself and have probably had more such contacts via this medium than many of you reading this! I do not claim it as pure radio though. It’s a convenient substitute and is a boon for those without access to a transceiver and antennas BUT, I’m not happy when other users try to claim PC to PC contacts as amateur radio ones. PLEASE, do not make such claims!

To quote Krystyna’s post:
“Echolink is currently the more socially acceptable system compared to IRLP. The reason is that Echolink allows the use not only of stations using radio frequency via simplex or duplex repeaters to link to others worldwide,it also provides direct links to pc users as well. This bodes well for those users who do not currently have a radio.”

I disagree! I think the more acceptable one is IRLP which involves radios every time.

Another quote:
“Even cheap second radios for £60 is still a lot of money to someone living on benefits,so a radio ham armed with a cheap computer and internet access,can gain access to a world of repeaters,and therefore access to many thousands of amateur radio enthusiasts”

I beg to disagree again! For the cost of the internet access and a cheap computer you could easily acquire a cheap radio transceiver, so by casting the internet and computer aside you could have a radio. A cheap computer that is fast enough to work VOIP through the internet would cost say 50 Pounds or so and the monthly internet fee at least ten or twelve quid (often double that). For all that money you could buy a cheap transceiver at a rally or build the MKARS 80m 5 watt SSB kit. That is 60 Pounds. Building your own gear is part of our hobby so why fight shy of it? So if you are torn between wanting to do amateur radio or computing but can’t afford both at the moment, then, if you are really keen to get on the air, you should chose amateur radio and sell your computing stuff…. seeemples! The alternative is to save up each week to buy another rig. Look at your weekly expenditure and, if you can, cut out an item you could do without. Some of our members smoke and drink. If they can’t buy a second hand rig immediately they could stop smoking and drinking and save the money towards the gear. I would even go as far as to say that, if there is no other option, leave SARC for a year and put the subs money (35 pounds + 1 Pound door levy a week) towards a new rig and then come back to SARC a year later!

Amateur radio is NOT just about communication. Our licence details this. Communication is the end product of a number of other activities that our hobby is about… namely experimentation, home construction and learning more about electronics, antennas, propagation, etc (self training). Too many newcomers to this hobby, it seems to me, only want to talk to each other using store bought gear and do nothing else. That is a multiband form of CB and is not the fine technically based pursuit that our forefathers developed back in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. If you just want to talk and not contribute anything to the technical/experimental side of amateur radio then why not use the licence free communications systems such as Hamsphere, CB, Skype, cellphones, iChat, ooVoo, etc? They are much cheaper!

I’m sorry if I offend some of you but that’s the way it is. I don’t want to see Amateur Radio diluted by CB operating standards, language and procedures (we have our own tried and tested ones) and by operators who have no interest in pushing the boundaries of the many facets of our hobby. I’m all for progress and I embrace as many of the new developments as I can, provided they are relevant to radio. Using homemade gear, I made the first ssb to ssb QSO (with Bob G4APV) on the 10GHz band in Sheffield back in the 80s. These days I’ve been getting into Software Defined Radio receivers and using esoteric data modes such as JT65, ROS, etc. I’m about to start building an ssb/cw transverter that converts the 80m band to the lightwave bands (610 nanometres). And yes, I still find time to do a lot of operating!

If the bands drop out then I usually turn to the workbench, not Echolink

73 folks and enjoy your amateur RADIO..

Peter, G3PHO

PS: these are my last words on this subject on this website. If anyone would like to organise a club night debate on it I’d be very pleased to take part, provided it was run as a formal debate and not a free for all slanging match. Let me know and we’ll find a date.

But this is just one Way of staying in touch with your friends IF the bands are not there!! , But you know what they say… You can not please them all

I too listern on 11 metre,s from time to time, but very rarely TX on there. It,s not a bad band, it,s just the idiots that spoil it for the rest of them.

We are critcised by CBer,s as much as we criticise them…..

I,e when some of us think that something is funny, we say “Hi”,
that,s like saying we don,t like laughing, and don,t have a sense of homour…..

We criticise them for buck mouthing etc….

Sounds like swings and rounder bouts on both sides…

All the best to you all, see you monday…

73,s 2e0tjx……

73

Peter