Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide.
Long before DMR talkgroups or Fusion rooms existed, hams were already linking repeaters together over the internet using EchoLink and IRLP. Both predate the current wave of digital voice modes by years, both are still actively used today, and both solve a problem that is easy to underestimate: getting a signal from a handheld radio in one city to a repeater, and a listener, on the other side of the world.
EchoLink: software first
EchoLink is fundamentally a piece of software, available as a desktop app, a mobile app, or running on a dedicated repeater link, that connects your voice, whether from an actual radio or just your computer’s microphone, to the EchoLink network over the internet using VoIP technology. Once verified with a valid amateur license (verification is required and reasonably quick), you can connect directly to individual stations, conference-style rooms with dozens of participants, or repeater systems anywhere in the world that have EchoLink capability. A huge part of EchoLink’s appeal is that you do not need a radio at all, since the software-only mode works straight from a computer or phone, though you still need a validated amateur license to use the network in any mode, even just to listen.
IRLP: repeater to repeater
IRLP, the Internet Radio Linking Project, takes a more repeater-centric approach. Rather than software running on your own computer or phone, IRLP nodes are dedicated hardware installations attached directly to a repeater system, and users interact with the network entirely through DTMF tones sent from an ordinary handheld or mobile radio, no app or computer needed on the user’s end at all. You key up, punch in a node number on your radio’s keypad, and your local repeater connects to the destination repeater’s audio over the internet. This makes IRLP genuinely simple from an end-user perspective, since all the complexity lives in the node hardware rather than in anything you personally need to install or configure.
How they compare to DMR, Fusion, and D-STAR
The core difference is architecture. DMR, D-STAR, and Fusion are all digital voice modes with their own dedicated network infrastructure (Brandmeister, DMR-MARC, the D-STAR gateway system, Wires-X for Fusion) built specifically around digital voice traffic and talkgroups. EchoLink and IRLP instead link ordinary analog FM repeaters over the general internet, meaning any FM handheld can participate on the local repeater end without needing digital-capable hardware at all. The tradeoff is that EchoLink and IRLP depend entirely on a working internet connection at the repeater or node, exactly the kind of infrastructure a serious grid-down scenario would take offline, which is worth keeping in mind if you are counting on either as part of an emergency plan rather than everyday convenience and long-distance chatting.
Getting started with either
For EchoLink, download the app for your platform, complete the callsign validation process (the EchoLink team checks your call against the licensing database and may ask for a copy of your license or a photo ID to confirm it is really you), and you can be connecting to stations worldwide soon after you are approved. For IRLP, check whether your local repeater already has a node installed, most repeater listings on RepeaterBook note IRLP or EchoLink capability directly, and if so, the node number and basic usage instructions are usually posted on the repeater owner’s own website or announced periodically on the repeater itself.
Etiquette on a linked repeater
Linked repeaters reward a little patience. Leave a longer pause than usual between transmissions, since the internet link adds a second or two of delay and the far end may have a courtesy tone or a squelch tail you cannot hear. Key up, wait a beat before speaking so the link has time to open, and identify with your call sign as usual. When a conversation is done, drop the connection with the disconnect code the node owner has posted, usually 73 on IRLP, rather than leaving two repeaters tied together for someone else to untangle. And remember that a busy local repeater belongs to its regular users too, so keep linked contacts reasonably short during commute hours or local nets.
For the newer digital voice networks these compare against, see DMR vs. D-STAR vs. YSF. If you’re weighing EchoLink against AllStarLink specifically, see EchoLink vs AllStarLink: Which VoIP Linking System Is Right for You?