The future of IRLP

One of the more interesting aspects of VHF operation these days is IRLP. The following is taken from the USA's excellent Amateur Radio Newsline.

IRLP stands for the Internet Repeater Linking Project which was developed by Canadian radio amateur Dave Cameron, VE7LTD. Dave had a booth at this year's Dayton Hamvention and we dropped by to ask him about the latest in the world-wide phenomena that he created:

Cameron: "We have the advent of miniature reflectors in which you can have your own little private network that can host its own node. We have a lot of guys using the IRLP to build multi-port and fancy repeater controllers. We have got lots of things going on.

The Internet Radio Linking Project was started back in November of 1997 as an attempt to use the Internet to link radio systems across Canada. The first full time link was established from Vancouver, British Columbia to Saint John, New Brunswick. This link had many problems and was soon shut. But Cameron did not give up and eventually he developed the Voice- Over-IP custom software and hardware that lead to the success of IRLP. And what does he see for the future of the IRLP concept?

Cameron: "I see it continuing to grow. Maybe we can start playing around with some interesting control things. I (also) see it growing in use in emergency services such as hurricane relief. And the Red Cross has a lot of interest in linking their stations together using IRLP and Echolink."

IRLP has grown into a worldwide network of dedicated servers and nodes offering very stable worldwide voice communications between hundreds of towns and cities. All this with unsurpassed uptimes and the full dynamic range of telephone quality audio.

Information on how to bring your repeater on-line is at the IRLP website. It's in cyberspace at www.irlp.net

Source: Amateur Radio Newsline

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