Please email us if you have any corrections, additions or deletions of information. Some of this information may be out of date. BCARC has not verified any information provided to the group by others for the purpose of this listing. BCARC takes no responsibility for the accuracy of information listed here. Information provided on this page is done as a courtesy to the Amateur Radio community. A repeater “gets out” your signal and receives the station you are talking to with a far greater range and coverage area! You take advantage of the repeater’s higher elevation to increase your effective transmitting and receiving coverage versus your mobile or hand held transceiver! Local Area Repeaters Repeater systems are used to “transfer” your transmitted and received signals to much higher levels electronically using large, very efficient high gain antennas, low loss feed lines and a transmitter and receiver that is rated for heavy or continuous duty. Your mobile or hand held transceiver, has a limited range due to its antenna height with respect to the radio horizon and rf attenuating surroundings. Just don't sit there for hours, or connect and then disconnect right away, especially if someone tries to talk to you.A repeater is a two-way radio system that receives on one frequency, and then re-transmits what it receives on another frequency at exactly the same time. So if you connect, wait a minute or so, and then say something, that's perfect. It is good amateur radio practice to listen before speaking. Mentoring is a big part of amateur radio, but if you refuse to talk, we can't mentor you. Amateur radio is all about communication, and I'm sure if you try you can find someone who is willing to help you stumble through and improve. Also, if you want to exercise your language, I can understand not wanting to initiate a conversation, but at least try to respond if someone talks to you. Conference servers have a very high number of slots, and I think they don't announce when you connect and disconnect, and won't prevent anyone from dialing out. If you immediately disconnect without talking first, you'll never know if people were talking before you connected or if people are there but listening.Īs an alternative to connecting to repeaters and listening, find a conference server instead. Maybe conversation just paused when your connection was announced. If you're disconnecting because you connected and didn't immediately hear any activity, you're doing it wrong. Similarly, why would you connect and then immediately disconnect? If you're having technical difficulties with your audio, use the echolink test server until you have it fixed. You shouldn't expect to connect to a repeater via echolink and refuse to talk either. You wouldn't walk into a restaurant, stand in the middle of the dining room, and stare at people, and then refuse to sit at a table. If you are not going to talk on this two way medium, why are you bothering to participate at all? To say the least, if I see you connecting to my repeater and disconnecting and not saying anything when directly spoken to, you're going to end up on my blacklist and not allowed to connect at all. Yes, connecting without saying anything is rude. And I can't call out while you are connected either, even if there are multiple slots. So you are going to now sit there and just listen, taking up a slot that a real live person could have used. So all these "listen only" users are constantly connecting and disconnecting, getting announced each time, and not saying a word.Īdditionally, many repeaters have a limited number (sometimes only one) of available connection slots. And now you're going to drop the connection without saying anything? That also is announced. Now you won't talk to us? Why did you bother connecting. EchoLink is a two-way system by design, and there is no mechanism to validate listen-only stations.Īs a repeater owner, people who connect and say nothing are beyond irritating. No "SWL" (listen-only) capability is supported. Perhaps the policy would be clearer if it were written this way: I hear stations connect to nodes regularly without saying anything. I don't think that they mean that you aren't allowed to connect and not talk. "We don't support a way for a non licensed station to listen only."
Anyone can buy a radio and listen without being licensed to talk on it and there is no way technologically that you can prevent them from listening. Contrast that with "traditional" short wave listeners. You logistically can not listen to this system without also being allowed to talk on it. You can't use the echo link system without being a validated licensed amateur. EchoLink is a two-way system by design, and there is no mechanism to validate listen-only stations. No "SWL" (listen-only) access is permitted.
#Echolink ham radio area code full
The full access policy states (my emphasis):