440 Echolink Now Offline
There have been some issues regarding Echolink and the computer it was running on. I first noticed some problems with audio during our last Sunday 440 net (10/30/16), when people tried to check in over Echolink, and you could hear the carrier, but no audio.
After doing some testing on the future 2m Echolink project, I discovered that our 440 repeater was not passing audio from Echolink. I messed with the computer for nearly thirty minutes Thursday night, and had no success in getting the audio to properly play on the 440 machine. It turns out, that Microsoft changed the audio subsystem in Windows 10, and many people have been having issues with it and Echolink.
Why did we upgrade the computer. We didn’t do it willfully. It upgraded during the time when Microsoft was really pushing the 10 upgrade, and changed it at some point to basically do an auto-install. We came in one Saturday morning and discovered the computer had upgraded. The audio issue wasn’t discovered immediately though.
I say all of this in order so you now know the reason I made the decision to take Echolink offline until a fix or correction can be made. I promise to make this a priority and get this resolved as soon as I can. Echolink for the 2m repeater is being tested and I really really hope to have it online by Thanksgiving.
[UPDATE] The Echolink node is now back online and ready for use.