EchoLink Update!

[Bradley Brown Jr.]

Good morning friends,

While setting up EchoLink for tonight's net, I learned that there is a newer version of the software available. I looked over the changelog, and they patched up some networking stuff, and improved the network test. 

With the network test in the newer version of EchoLink, I learned about a misconfiguration on my Internet router, and fixed it. After some testing and troubleshooting this morning before work, I was able to connect and get audio to and from my host computer to my mobile device, where it hadn't been working before. At least not since I got a new Internet router at the house.

For those wondering why it worked some of the time, but not all of the time, a technical explanation:

EchoLink requires 3 ports to be open on the firewall, allowing traffic from the Internet to the computer running the host software. These are like apartment numbers on a home address.

1. TCP port 5200 is the signaling port. It is the port that your mobile device or computer uses to say, "Hey, I want to connect." and "I'm clicking the PTT button to transmit now." TCP is a smarter protocol that verifies for the client that the connection was successful.

2. UDP ports 5198 and 5199 are used to send the audio over the Internet from your mobile device or computer to my host computer that's connected to my radio. UDP is a simpler protocol, and thus faster - great for realtime audio!

My trouble was that only one of the UDP ports was answering the door. The guy in apartment 5198 would answer, but if you went to 5199 because 5198 was busy, you'd find boards nailed over the door.

This should help this evening's net participants. 

and remember, tonight is the third Thursday, so I'll need to change the channel over to the Falmouth repeater at 7 PM for the Wireless Society of Southern Maine. We have a member in Texas that used to summer in Maine, who looks forward to catching up with old friends on the net. :)

Thank you,

--Brad Brown Jr.

[s r]

The part about the UDP ports is hysterical!

Thank you so much, Brad, both for the update and all you do!

Susan

KC1BSQ 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "York County Amateur Radio Club W1YCA" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to w1yca+un...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/w1yca/CAA%3DZVPXbRKkxd0cpHk0ySXS5ER3KeiRys332Sp5ykegv0fAH%2BQ%40mail.gmail.com.