Echolink access via repeater or link in south of Lake Davenport, Orlando FL

[OZ1BZJ]

Hi

Have been through old posts on the topic with out finding information that are up to date..

just for the fun of i like a few qso's back to Denmark while on vacation in Orlando..

We have managed to find a repeater at UCF that do not filter out users and do allow inbound foreign connection. But i can not reach that from south of lake davenport. The one i do reach from here will not allow a foreign connections.

I am sure there must be plenty of links or repeaters on Echolink in the area.

Any suggestions Please.

Thanks in advance

73 de OZ1BZJ
Michael

[KJ6EZQ]

Try searching here:

http://www.echolink.org/logins.jsp

[OZ1BZJ]

Thanks A lot for your reply.

I did try there or rather I tried first APRS, as some echolink responsible put an icon there. Then i tried the Echolink, then the page you pointed at and finally google but not much luck in finding clear answer, as many link or repeater owners do not specify where exactly the link/ repeater are located and the frequency in use..

But anyway now it do not matter. Now i would not even use one if there was. I did find a repeater with Echolink at a university and did drive the 30 miles to be with in range. 40 sec or so in to first QSO with a ham back in Denmark. The echolink connection was shout down manually by some one with no warning what so ever. Our QSO was in Danish, but we identified our self in every transmission in plain English.

Only on my request after we figured out what had happen. some one answered that only English was allowed on the repeater.. with some excuse about the repeater being privately operated.
Now i can not in my wildest imagination figure out why one would like to limit the repeater to English in a country where so many languages are spoken. That sees like discrimination to me and would fuel Spanish only repeaters, Chinese only repeaters and so on (unless FCC require English). Never less that is the repeater owner right to set what rules he or she like.... But the minimum should be to communicate what ever rules that are on top of FCC clearly rather then just cut some one off. In this case put the information in the Echolink text that everyone see when looking the station up in echolink.. and as some one was listening on our QSO that someone could have come in and told what ever rules was made for that repeater we could have continued in English. (only other way to figure out are to be online with a pc all the time to check rules on a given repeater if the repeater happend to have a web page... But in that case why use the repeater. Skype would seem like a better choice. ) Cutting anyone off in a QSO by simply cutting of Echoling are so low and not the ham spirit i used to see in US. I have been doing presentations on Traveling to Hamvention back home. Telling about how great I find it to see that hamspirit was living well in US.... But now i can add that in Florida i did not feel welcome on the repeaters.
Imagen being from US on vacation in Denmark or Germany and you where told you can only communicate in Danish or German... not many will get a single QSO then. Or what happen all most every day on repeaters with Echolink in Denmark, that a us station connect and call cq..... Not much of that if had to be in English
Then as additional information all repeaters in Denmark are privately operated what differences do that make..

Hope to see the ham spirit still alive and kicking at Hamvention 2011

73 de OZ1BZJ
Michael

[G0RAS]

try k4zpz -r worked fine for me when in davenport area 44310 echolink number

I used aprs in the area and had some success too..

[K0RGR]

I feel like I have to apologize on behalf of the rest of the American people. Repeater owners in this country are allowed to make whatever rules they like for the repeater, even if they are silly - and more than a few of them are silly. Since the repeater owner could be held responsible for the content of your communications, he's within his rights to demand 'English Only', though that seems more than a bit rude. I suppose there's a chance that Al Qaeda could be using Danish on his repeater to organize terrorist strikes. Or, Denmark might be planning to invade us?

All repeaters are 'privately operated', but some of them are 'closed', meaning that outsiders are not allowed to use them in most cases. That's also not in the ham spirit, but it's the law over here.

Why not just connect to EchoLink in Denmark via the Internet?

[W0BG]

My apologies to our Danish ham friend. I think that the issues involving "english only repeaters" run even deeper than the way we seem to be insulting our non-US hams with these policies.
Let's take the assumption that American hams in Puerto Rico (Yes, Puerto Ricans are Americans), wanting to talk to another ham, who, let's say is a family member living in Florida, would not be allowed to speak in Spanish on some of the Florida repeaters because, perhaps they didn't want to or refused to speak English. It seems like to me, that a Puerto Rican who is a citizen of the US ought to have the same right to converse in his native Spanish language as much as we have the right to speak English, on Echolink or IRLP. Are we not violating a Puerto Rican ham's First Ammendment rights of Freedom of Speech by not allowing that ham to speak in Spanish when it's Ok for us to speak in English? By the same token, based on the "english only
" mentality, Puerto Rican repeater trustees should not allow vacationing "english speaking" hams in Puerto the right to use their repeaters.

It appears to me that we have FCC rules affecting the responsibility of repeater owners or trustees which encourage some, but not all repeater operators to violate the Freedom of Speech of others. It's embarrassing enough that we offend hams outside of the US who see the world as one giant brotherhood, which it is. What do you say to the KP4 who's now been thrown off a repeater for speaking Spanish from his native Puerto Rico to another Spanish speaking station in Florida? Let's say that both hams are American as you and me and Bubba or Billy Bob who happen to be repeater owners? Have we not infringed on this KP4's Freedom of Speech? I think we are taking ourselves way to seriously for us to allow ourselves to discriminate to such a point. I would love to see the cases where repeater owners and trustees have been fined and/or issued notices of violation for rules infractions by non-english speakers on their repeaters. Until I see such documentation, I, as one, will continue to be of the minset that discrimination here is the bigger factor, rather than an over righteous desire to "follow the rules." I will now offer an apology to those who I have just offended because you feel that you are doing the right thing.

Please, if you have been cited by the FCC as being a negligent owner of a repeater, because of maliscious foreign language users, please feel free to tell us your story. Regardless of the case, repeater owners and operators ought not to feel, for the sake of the more paranoid repeater owners amongst us, that they are obliged to have "English only" repeaters which discriminate on the basis of perceived FCC rules. Juan should be able to talk to Raul in Spanish from one part of this country to any other part of this country in Spanish. It's his or her right to do so, the right to speak freely as an American. The Constitution ultimately should win this battle of Freedom of Speech versus Local Control. This is broken. We need to fix it.

At a minimum, we should petition the FCC to consider other ways to enforce the rules, in order to allow us to keep an open and free America, one which does not discriminate against, but would allow for interaction with all peoples and nations of the earth. The development of new technologies seems to be part of the problem as well. Perhaps it is time for the FCC to write some new life into Part 97.

Mark Kelley
Parker, CO
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