Ham Shack for VE3TTT (EchoLink) & VE3SUE (IRLP) Internet Links


Myself (Tim - VA3TJS) in the ham shack with the internet links.	All of the equipment in the shack. 2 computers, 2 monitors, 3 tranceivers, all dedicated to internet linking.


Both of the Tranceivers. On top is the EchoLink, below is the IRLP.	The backside of the radio rack, showing the power supply and duplexer for the antenna.


The General Electric MVP. This tranceiver is the link to VE3TTT on 147.180 MHz with 2 watts output.	The General Electric MLS II. This is the link to VE3SUE on 444.400 Mhz with 7 watts output.


The VOX circuit to control the PTT for IPhone. It was purchased at a local parts supplier, in kit form manufactured by Canakit.Note this unit was very sensitive and required that a ground wire be attached between the ground on the 12 volt supply and the case of the computer, to stop falsing.	The IRLP board (bottom left), which includes a DTMF decoder. This hardware controls the PTT and watches for a COS. The black box on the top of the photo is a homebrew controller similar to the IRLP device, except with my own software written for it.


The two computers. The bottom is a Pentium 90Mhz, running Red Hat Linux 6.2 and IRLP. The top is a Cyrix 120Mhz running Windows 98 SE and IPhone 4.5. The Linux computer masquerades internet to the other computers in the house over a local area network.	The cable modem on the hot water heater. This provides us with a dedicated high speed connection to the internet (24 hours a day, with a fixed IP address.)

A closer look at the Homebrew Controller. The box contains a DTMF controller and connections for COS and PTT. By connecting to the parallel port and using software I wrote, the computer can play WAV files on the air when requested by DTMF. Timed voice announcements can be made as well as other experiments such as IPhone control and weather radio. This is used to run the SORT Report on Saturday nights.

The Yaesu FT-726 which listens on VE3SUE and is connected to the homebrew controller.

Here is a detailed explanation of what we have set-up at our house. In the ham shack we have two computers systems:

Computer #1: "The Linux Box" or "IRLP Computer"
Pentium 90 / 32 MB RAM running Red Hat Linux 6.2 with the cable modem (3Mbps) connection. This computer is running IRLP with a transceiver and DTMF decoder connected on a frequency of 444.400 (+ 5.0 Mhz) listening to the VE3SUE repeater. At the same time I have set-up this computer with a second network card, which allows me to wire a Local Area Network (LAN) within our house. Using "IP Masquerading" software on this computer I am able to share internet with all the computers on the LAN, as well as run a firewall and other software such as Telnet, FTP and HTTP servers.

Computer #2: "The SORT Computer" or "IPhone Computer"
Cyrix 120 / 64 MB RAM running Windows 98 S.E. This computer is connected to the LAN, allowing it access to the internet through the Linux Box. This computer is running IPhone and is connected to transceiver on 147.180 (+ 0.6 Mhz) listening to the VE3TTT repeater. So, when someone calls us on IPhone, the IRLP computer receives the data and passes it along to this computer. On a side note, this computer has a second sound card in it, which is connected to a second 444.400 transceiver, which allows us to play WAV files such as the "SORT Report", which is a ham radio news program collected from RAC, ARRL, RSGB, QNEWS, and Newsline. This uses software which I wrote, and some hardware I designed a few years ago, but unfortunately haven't had a lot of time to work on. I should also mention it takes about 3 hours of our Saturday morning to collect, edit and produce the SORT report, which we have done every week for about 2 years.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that I also have two more computers on the LAN:

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Hope to hear all of you on the EchoLink or IRLP,
73... Tim Spicer - VA3TJS

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