September Club Meeting: Echolink

At the club meeting, an interest in Echolink was indicated again.

It might be time to revisit Echolink as the BAARC has two functioning VHF and 2 functioning UHF machines. We should be able to set up shop on one of them.

Some questions and concerns were raised:

1. SITE:
A) Tiger Hill:
pro: Internet access via City of BA
con: Internet access via City of BA (firewalls, etc.)

B) Leonard Mtn.
pro: excellent line of sight.
con: no existing data service

C) TBA: possibly Asbury UMC or BA "Towne Center" Water Tower.
pro: we have a guy "on the inside" at Asbury.
con: we need to shield the heck out of the repeater so it doesn't interrupt Sunday Service.

general feeling was that Echolink shouldn't be conducted on a "primary repeater". So that would suggest NOT .91 or .45

To satisfy that request, I was thinking 443.600 out of Leonard Mtn. But the radios we use to backhaul the audio back to someone's house (it used to be Jeff / AE5ME) would have to be in the 440 range to satisfy some FCC requirements on remote control. I don't know if that is asking for intermod issues or not considering a 443.600 XMIT frequency. We could avoid the backhaul radios by getting a computer and Internet up at Leonard. I don't know if we could set up a microwave / wi-fi shot or not. Alternately, we could backhaul at 900 MHz. Does anyone live nearby ?

Thoughts ?
Questions ?
Comments ?