I’ve been using EchoLink well before smartphones where the only way I knew how to connect to a different station was via the radio. The internet wasn’t as extensive as it is now and you had to dial the node you wanted via the radio. You can still do this today but I don’t think anywhere near as many do it.
I always felt EchoLink was well ahead of its time. Started well before any digital radio was thought of. Connecting the world via the internet.
It was great to be able to talk to the UK or States while mobile on the way to work just using a small whip antenna on the car.
Given I’m in Australia, it can be difficult to remember when overseas nets are on, or what part of the world is awake and up for a chat and which ones are not. But EchoLink has a CQ feature.
Calling CQ
EchoLink had a CQ feature where you can call CQ and it will automatically connect to someone who is calling CQ also.
From the Stations screen select call CQ.
- Then select your language.
- Select the country, if you leave it as any, you will not limit your connection options
- Select the node type, again, leave as any to start with
- And you can skip recent if you want to.
Then press Call CQ
It will call CQ for a while searching for a connection that matches your settings. I find that sometimes it tries to connect to another node but can fail. This is perhaps because the connection drops out for whatever reason. Just try again.
The good thing about this option is you will get someone who is wanting to talk to someone just like you do!
What is your experience with EchoLink? What is your favourite nodes? Why don’t you put it in the comments below so we can all learn from your experiences.
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