Hi gang,
  I know some of the members of this list are hams.  Just last week, 
I became aware of a facility for hams to contact many others worldwide
either direct or thru repeaters (AM and FM).
  Licensed hams can hold half duplex voice contacts via the internet (of
course that's free).  Dialup service works fine.
  The program, avail. at www.echolink.org, is free.  It appears to be
quite sophisticated and convenient.  When connected, the prog. shows a 
complete list of all others who are connected.
  There is no hardware to buy if your computer has a sound 
card-NO RADIO EQUIP. NEED BE INVOLVED.
  To be called by someone (licensed hams only), your computer must be
running the program either on top or in the background.
  I got this running with no problems. When the prog. is started, a list
of all repeaters, links and people who are currently connected is shown.
So far this has been about ~1,000 worldwide,
  I often start the prog. whenever I have the computer running and put
it
into the background (it's running while I type this).  When someone
calls me, a beep sounds and I can look to see who is calling and then
start the QSO.
  One constraint is that your computer must be online.  I have cable 
internet service so that is no problem.

Bob Barns 
KB2IKC
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