Our Allstar node 468100 can be reached from Hamshack Hotline at 94140

For those not familiar with Del City, we are part of the Oklahoma City metro area. This club was founded because of the interest in using new technologies to enhance amateur radio (ham). We’ve since expanded our scope to include other radio services to include General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), Family Radio Service (FRS) and even Citizens Band (CB). While our founding interest is and has always been amateur radio, our users have more interests in radio than just amateur.

We celebrated our 20th anniversary of our founding on 4 September 2022. On August 9, 2012 we changed our name from Del City Amateur Radio Club to Del City Amateur Radio Society. More recently, on 8 January 2021, we changed our name to Del City Radio Club to emphasize our inclusion of other services into our interest. Our organization embraces new technologies and welcomes changes. One of the common themes we hear from people is that computers, and Internet “are not real ham radio”. We disagree. As long as there is RF somewhere in the chain, it is real ham radio.

Also, in addition to ham radio, we are fans of other methods of communication, even voice over IP (VoIP), sometimes referred to as radio over IP (RoIP). Feel free to browse around and join us anytime. We do not collect membership dues and are not required to use our systems. If you would like to donate, then feel free to use the Paypal QR code below.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

HOW DO I LISTEN TO STREAMING AUDIO OVER THE INTERNET? You just click on the two links below. W5DEL Allstar Link Node 468101 and Echolink Node 164667 W5DEL Allstar Node 468100

WHERE AND WHEN ARE CLUB MEETINGS HELD? We are a small informal club mainly comprised of a few family members and friends so we do not have formal meetings.  We’ve never really had the time to invest into meetings or formal gatherings. We would be interested in pursuing that if someone wanted to take that on.

WHAT IS EXPECTED ON THE REPEATERS? he FCC requires that amateur radio operators give their station call sign every 10 minutes and at the end of the conversation. We also believe and enforce giving station call sign before you dial up or communicate on the nodes. This is because many times we have run into trouble on the reflectors because a user would not abide by the reflector rules (not ours) and get the node blocked from the reflector and since they never gave their call sign, then there is no way to get in touch with the user to explain the rules. We reserve the right to shut down any node, repeater or both when people cannot identify themselves on the repeaters. Also if someone dials up a node without identifying first, then the user may be connecting in the middle of an ongoing conversation on the other end. If this conversation goes on more than 10 minutes, then the local user would not be able to abide by the FCC 10 minute ID rule without interrupting another conversation. We expect courtesy to others while using the repeaters or nodes. Do not use profanity or treat others with disrespect. If someone is jamming the repeater, just sign off and do not discuss it on the air. When you do, you are giving them what they want, attention. If you must talk about it, go to our FACEBOOK GROUP and discuss all you want.

WHERE ARE THE REPEATERS? The repeaters are in the Oklahoma City suburb of Del City, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma USA. It is located on the Southeast side of the metro area near Tinker Air Force Base. Del City is the nearest suburb to downtown Oklahoma City.  Physically the repeaters are 110 feet above the ground and are between SE 15th Street and SE 29th Street, and between Sunnylane Road and Bryant Avenue.

WHAT IS IRLP / ECHOLINK / ALLSTAR LINK? Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP), the name given to a voice over IP system, based on a Linux version of Speak Freely. It is used for communicating long distances, using repeaters connected to the Internet. A repeater connected to the IRLP system in Oklahoma City can easily connect to a repeater thousands of miles away by simply entering a DTMF node number of the distant repeater IRLP node. One of the high points of IRLP is that each node has a 128 bit Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encrypted key. When a node is dialed, the remote node verifies our PGP key to see if our node is legitimate or a hacked system. IRLP is only accessible via a radio, meaning that you cannot communicate through a connected computer using the computer microphone. IRLP is very secure and has superior audio because of the audio codec used is more wide band. It requires a greater Internet bandwidth than Echolink and is a bit more difficult to set up.  It is not a digital system like D-Star, or System Fusion, though it does convert the analog audio into a digital signal as it is transmitted over the Internet and then reconverted back to analog audio on the other end.  All is needed is a two meter or 70 cm analog radio with DTMF and CTCSS capability. Echolink is a similar setup run by different ownership. It doesn’t have as much bandwidth so the audio quality can suffer but it is better if you access from a phone in an area where there isn’t much signal. Allstar Link is another system that runs on Asterisk and Linux. It has the most flexibility of all of the analog systems. Any node can connect multiple nodes simultaneously like a hub.

WHAT IS VOICE OVER IP? Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a system that takes audio from our repeater and converts it into digital data. That data is transmitted over the network (Internet) to remote nodes. The remote node computer takes the data and converts it back to analog audio for the users on the remote end to hear. Voice over IP is a widely use technology today carrying voices over the Internet as data much cheaper than using a standard telephone. In fact, most cellular telephone companies today are already doing this.

WHAT IS A NODE? A node is the name that refers to a computer access point. Every node is assigned a node number. This is analogous to a telephone number. Our repeaters have node numbers that correspond to the computer access point attached to them.

WHAT NODE NUMBER ARE WE? An occasion may come when we may be connected to an reflector that a person on the other end may ask you what node you are on so they can call you direct. 146.700 MHz IRLP is 3277 –  ECHOLINK is 164667 (W5DEL-R) is a repeater 443.300 MHz WIRES-X is 33521

HOW DO I FIND OTHER ALLSTAR LINK NODE NUMBERS? All active Allstar Link nodes are shown on this status page… http://stats.allstarlink.org/

HOW DO I FIND OTHER IRLP NODE NUMBERS? All active IRLP nodes are shown on this status page… http://status.irlp.net/index.php?PSTART=3 All reflectors are shown on this status page… http://status.irlp.net/

HOW DO I FIND OTHER ECHOLINK NODE NUMBERS? All active Echolink nodes are shown on this status page… http://echolink.org/logins.jsp

WHAT IS A REFLECTOR / CONFERENCE SERVER / HUB? A reflector is a special kind of node used on IRLP that allows multiple repeaters and simplex nodes from anywhere in the world to connect simultaneously. This way when one person speaks, all connected nodes will hear it and therefore all of the people in the listening area of those nodes will hear it. A reflector node number always begins with a nine (9). The last digit of the node number signifies which of the 10 reflector channels it is. For example… If we dial 9451, we are connecting to the Dallas reflector 9450, channel one (1). This allows ample channels for multiple repeaters to meet up on a channel for a private meeting. The owner of the reflector has the power to block any node at any time. Reflectors may have ten channels but they are numbered 0-9, 9100, 9101, 9102, etc. Channel zero is the main channel. A Conference Server does basically the same thing as a Reflector, but is the name used by Echolink. Hubs also serve the same purpose as reflectors and conference servers but is the name give by the Allstar Link network.

WHAT IS THE WIN SYSTEM? The WIN System, or Western Intertie Network, is repeater linking system originating from San Diego, California. It was created by Jeff (Shorty) Stouffer K6JSI. There are more than 90 repeaters throughout California, and throughout the world. The WIN System has some rules that must be adhered to and can be found here. We are confident you will love this system.  The WIN System can be accessed through both IRLP node 9100 or Allstar Link node 2560. Anyone holding a valid ham radio license may connect either node to the WIN System or any other reflector/conference/hub, or individual node whenever they like. We just no longer leave it connected 24 hours a day.

HOW DO I MAKE CALLS TO IRLP, ALLSTAR LINK OR ECHOLINK AND HOW DO I DISCONNECT? To get connect and disconnect codes, send an email to club@delcityradioclub.com with your call sign and simply ask for the codes and we will give them to you.  We do not openly publish them because doing so opens the door for improper activity on the nodes.  We freely give the codes out to licensed operators that ask so that we have some sense of order.  If the operation becomes out of control, we can change the codes at any time and even make it a closed system. That is not our desire and would be a last resort.

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