Author: admin

Dewan Swanepoel recently celebrated a significant milestone in his amateur radio journey by receiving his new call sign, ZS6ZC, after passing his ham radio test. The exciting news came through an email notification on the night of Friday, May 16, marking the beginning of his adventures in the world of ham radio. Dewan’s father, Jan Swanepoel, known by his call sign ZS6ZYM, is a regular participant on the Kowabunga Net, hosted on the DoDropIn conference server, while his mother, Cathleen, holds the call sign ZS6ZG. This family connection to amateur radio is sure to inspire Dewan as he embarks on his new hobby.

– by James Paulson VE6CKY

DoDropIn has gone through many changes over the years, so I wanted to write an article with an update on the current build of the DoDropIn array.

For many of our end users, you may just connect via Echolink 355800 or DODROPIN on the conference listing and connect. That core Echolink access mode is unchanged. The primary Echolink conference is cloud-hosted in a data center and runs reliably for the most part without any issues at all. There is a second conference node, DODROPIN2, and these two Echolink conferences are connected together such that they back each other up. If one goes down, the other online one shall be considered the primary.

Using this Echolink core structure, this is where the fun begins, because what we have built that feeds into this core conference structure is a pair of AllStar to Echolink bridges. Both bridges are using HamVOIP, with one node hosted by Darryl Warford, VO1UKZ, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada (Allstar 50241), and the other AllStar bridge is hosted by James Paulson, VE6CKY, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada (AllStar 62470).

These two nodes are connected together full-time via AllStar, and both are on dedicated high-speed connections capable of handling any traffic you throw at them. Both bridges are capable of bridging AllStar to Echolink, but for convenience, we leave AllStar 50241 as the feed point to the Echolink conference. Should AllStar 50241 go down, we can quickly connect 62470 to either of the two Echolink conferences and keep the system up and running.

Both AllStar bridges also link to a repeater at each location: VO1XMT and VA6YXH. The repeaters represent our personal commitment to sharing DoDropIn with hams in our region as well as worldwide.

AllStar 50241 is also where I have done all the content programming for connecting to external net feeds, except for a few nets that arrive via the Echolink to Echolink conference bridging to the Michigan conference, and the Spark to Space net, which I host locally and feed from my home QTH to the western bridge. By keeping AllStar connections and feeds at one location, it simplifies diagnosing issues if there are any problems. Our goal is multifold: reliability, redundancy, and scalability.

Both bridges are using redundant power and data-grade services for reliability. You won’t run out of bandwidth on either bridge.

AllStar 62470, hosted by myself, James VE6CKY, is repeater-phone friendly for connectivity. By balancing the load and bringing those services to the array on the west leg of the bridge, I have built this system out to be the test bed for new services. Our new Broadcastify feed comes from the western leg, and I am experimenting with a DMR connection to DoDropIn, and soon to come, perhaps Hams over IP and HamShack Hotline, although these latter two will be looked at in Fall 2025.

For those interested in using IRLP, IRLP 9616 is a means to connect as well. I am told that it links directly to the primary Echolink conference at the same data center that hosts the primary DODROPIN conference.

Overall, I am really proud of what we have all built here. DoDropIn is a community of hams, all with unique skills, working together in their own way to make this happen. Considering that much of this advanced network has come together in about 12 months, we are on a great course with distributed computing resources, redundant design topologies, and even some shared ownership, which provides us with longevity as we move forward. It is a great pleasure to be involved with the highly capable and happy team at DoDropIn, and I personally look forward to many years to come working together.

James Paulson  

May 2025

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