[SMCARA] Upcoming SMCARA meeting announcement - 23 January 2002

[Pete Butt]

Folks,

  I wanted to make an early announcement of the next
St. Mary's County Amateur Radio Association (SMCARA)
meeting for January 2002 because of the topic we will
be talking about.

  First, the January meeting of the SMCARA will be held
on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23rd beginning at 7:30 PM at the
Lexington Park library in the rear meeting room.  PLEASE
NOTE THE DAY CHANGE (from Thursday to Wednesday) FOR 
THIS MONTH ONLY!  We had a schedule conflict for the
normal 4th Thursday date so I shifted the meeting forward
by one day.

  Our topic:  The Internet Repeater Linking Project (IRLP)

  WA3UMY, N3CAL, KB3HGY and W4OKW spent their Christmas
holiday building the very first IRLP linking node in the
state of Maryland and we'd like to introduce all of you to
this exciting new capability.  The IRLP is a consortium
of repeaters and remote bases world-wide (approximately
300 nodes on-line as of this week) that use the Internet
as a backbone to link each other.  The backbone uses
Voice over IP (VoIP) digital audio which provides stunning,
crystal clear communications between stations.  You simply
have to hear this to believe it!

  The new IRLP node (#482) is on the WA3UMY 443.05 MHz UHF
repeater in Lexington Park.  A number of local hams have
had the opportunity to give this new communications
capability a spin and all have been amazed at the quality
and reliability of the system.  Contacts with McMurdo Station
in Antarctica; New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, etc.
are now routine by simply pushing a few buttons on your
mobile or hand-held touch tone pad.  In addition to node-to-node
communications, there are a number of "reflectors" or
conferencing bridges on the system that allow you to connect
up to 100 nodes simultaneously together to construct virtual
"super-repeaters" on the fly for nets, conferences, educational
demonstrations, or just for the fun of it.

  Pete and AJ Farmer (KB3HGY) will provide a thorough
presentation on what IRLP is all about and show pictures
of how we built the local node.  We will be doing live demos
of the system and explaining how you too can try it out.
WA3UMY and W4OKW will describe the technical magic that makes
IRLP work and will provide a look at some of the technical
refinements that are in the works to harness your handheld
radio in the near future to further marry the Internet to
ham radio.

  While certainly not intended to displace any existing ham
radio capability, the IRLP is paving the way for reliable
nets and links to support educational pursuits (such as schools
talking to the International Space Station), linking repeaters
together for technical discussions and weather nets, etc.  Pete
will show and demonstrate some of these new capabilities during
the briefing.

  We hope that you will be able to attend this very interesting
meeting to learn all about IRLP.  If you simply can't wait for
the meeting to get smart, go to this web page on the Internet:

    http://www.qsl.net/wa3umy

where you will find a great deal of information about this new
system by selecting the IRLP link on the left side of the page
(the web site uses frames and is currently optimized for Internet
Explorer... I am redoing the page this week to include Netscape
functionality but use IE for now if you can).  Of course, Pete
and AJ will expand on all aspects of this new capability during
the club meeting to give you even more details.

  We will be having refreshments at the meeting this month so
I hope that each and every one of you will talk up this meeting
and invite all your friends that might be interested.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  We will be holding a very short business meeting this month
where we will also be holding the annual election of officers.
That will only take a few minutes before we begin the special
program for this month.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  I have added a number of other hams to the mailing for this
special meeting using the SMCARA e-mail reflector. If you do not
want to remain on the list (which is used for meeting announcements
and other special notices to club members), you can easily unsubscribe
if you wish.  Of course, we hope that you won't!

  Again, I hope to see all of you on the 23rd of January at 7:30 PM!
(and pass the word to all your ham friends)

  Very sincerely,

  Pete Butt, WA3UMY
  President, St. Mary's County Amateur Radio Assn.
  301-862-2214 (home)