Perturbation

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Reflector Life

Posted: 18 Sep 2016 08:50 AM PDT
https://ke9v.net/2016/09/18/reflector-life/


The Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) has been around for every moment
of the 21st century. I got involved with the project in 2003 when I built
my first node from a discarded personal computer. That was replaced a few
years later with an embedded node, and that was replaced this year with a
new node built on a Raspberry Pi.

In a nutshell, IRLP links repeaters and individual nodes, like mine, with
others via the Internet. For instance, a repeater in Florida can be linked
with a repeater in California and users on each end can communicate with
each other – sometimes without even realizing that the person they are
talking with is in another region.



Reflectors are computers running special software that facilitate the
linking of multiple repeaters and nodes. These are often installed in a
data center and have access to considerably more bandwidth than a home user
with cable Internet access.

The bandwidth permits many systems to be linked together, forming ever
larger networks as each reflector can support hundreds of simultaneous
connections via multiple “channels”.

In the early days this was all heady stuff and very unique. But IRLP has
matured considerably and these days many repeaters with IRLP capabilities
will connect on a semi-permanent basis to a specific channel of a
reflector, usually for geographical convenience.

For instance, reflector 9070 is considered the “Alaska Reflector” and a
quick look at the status of channel 0 this morning shows more than twenty
repeaters from around that State all linked together. Say “hello” on any
one of these linked repeaters and chances are good your signal will be
copied all over The Last Frontier.

This is handy for state-wide nets as well as percolating traffic on seldom
used systems. Of course, you don’t have to be in Alaska to link into that
system. Other systems from around the world can, and often do, join in.

But as IRLP and its many adherents have matured, I’ve noticed the
propensity for disparate repeater systems to link to a single channel and
remain linked.

The East Coast Reflector (9050) is a good example. There are some fifty to
sixty regular repeaters located up and down the eastern seaboard of the US
that remain connected to it 24/7.

These reflectors take on unique personalities as users eventually come to
know each other. This permits Bob in Ft Myers, Florida to chat with Marvin
and Bill in Vestal, New York, every weekday while driving to work. Before
you know it, you’ve made new friends in faraway cities and since the system
is immune to the vagaries of propagation, you can exchange brief
pleasantries every day if you like.

Or you could get yourself into longer conversations though given that the
systems are linked across wide areas, it would probably be appreciated if
long rag chews moved off to seldom used reflector channels or through
direct node-to-node linking.

Check out the list of reflectors and channels available, pick one, and then
hangout there for a few days to see if it’s your cup of tea.

You might find that these “islands” of connectivity have morphed IRLP into
the most useful of all the linked radio systems.