HOW TO CONNECT TO THE IRLP SYSTEM

GUIDELINES ON HOW TO CONNECT TO THE IRLP SYSTEM

03 Oct 2006

Connection
To connect to another station on the system, its node number must be known and, if necessary, this can be found from the status page at http://status.irlp.net.
Before a connection can be established, you should:
a. make sure that the repeater is open fully,
b. announce your callsign and intention,
c. then key in the required 4 digit node number using DTMF tones.
Most rigs now have this facility either as a keypad on the front or on the microphone. If neither of these are present, phone tone diallers or even mobile phones held in front of the microphone will work. After a few seconds, the repeater will reply with an audio message indicating the connection attempt and a few seconds later there should be a further message indicating that the connection has been made. If unsuccessful, there will be a message stating the reason.
Operation
Once connected, use the repeater as normal, though it is advisable to leave a slightly longer gap between overs to overcome the propagation delays through the system.
You should never:
a. open a link without giving a couple of calls through
b. leave a link open, either when no-one answers or after a QSO.
To close a link, just key in the 2 digit number "73". It is the convention that the person who opens the link also closes it, but sometimes this is not possible, so be prepared to do so. One pitfall to watch out for is, apart from any timeout on the gateways in use (5 minutes on GB3HH), the system itself has a timeout, again usually 5 minutes, to prevent an unclosed link locking out a pair of nodes. This requires that activity alternates between the two nodes, i.e. ping-pong, so if there are several stations on a node, do not hand on from one to another without passing it back to the other node. Remember, "all ping and no pong equals phut!".

Thanks to Ron G4MRQ and Tony G3RKL for their technical assistance and Dave 2E0DHS for his support