A while ago, I posted about Ham Radio and many of you operators came out of the woodwork. The topic of Echolink came up.
I received this today:
Dear Fr. Z.,
Do you speak Italian? [yes] I think so, but if no, to save you time you can disregard my message.
I am an American hermit living in the Sibillini Mountains of Amandola, Italy. [Beautiful. I drove through that area once.] I discovered a priest here is a licensed HAM operator (probably the only one… population ~3,000). I shared the information from your blog on Echolink and he is looking into it. He expressed an interest in contacting you via HAM radio.
I have an ulterior motive. It seems to me that the people here are asleep regarding ‘The Coming Storm’ and I suspect that Padre ___ might have an important role.
If such would be possible please know that I am clueless as to how to arrange contact.
May God reward you for all you do!
Blessings and prayers,
Sr. ____, hermit
Some of the folks who read this blog have written about Echolink HERE.
I signed up for Echolink and was approved, by I haven’t done anything with it yet, other than download the app for my phone and get my callsign approved.
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I tried Echolink for a while but I discontinued using it. It is often nothing more than an internet connection using something similar to “instant messaging” to chat with someone miles away. No RF involved. Just me on my computer and someone in Japan on their computer. I prefer using only the RF spectrum to communicate. Old school, I guess.
http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html
As I have listened to SW for decades now, I also run across things and perhaps the above might be of interest and value to HAMs.
A good friend and I use Echolink every Saturday. I live in NJ and he moved away, retiring back to PA. There are lots of times that both 80 and 40 Meters proved to be unusable for our weekly chats. Echolink is a nice way to keep in touch with old friends.
Fr. Z, how about an Echolink ministry? We could schedule through a node of one of the posters here and have checkins and then recite the Rosary. This is probably 30 minutes total including checkins.
You can cut your teeth on the technology.
Which Coming Storm?
My oldest son and I are planning to attend our first HAM radio class about a month from now. He’s in a tech high school and for his senior project, he’s going to have to build a short wave radio independently. This has been the senior project at his school for years . He’s starting his junior year this year so I’m hopeful that we’ll both learn a lot about Ham and SW radios between now and the spring of 2016. We’ll figure out the Echolink somewhere in this whole process, especially if a rosary crusade gets organized. Should be fun!