The following information was supplied by Dennis Boyle, KB9RRN

Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™



Once again this year, K9NZF Systems™ and the Chief Anderson Amateur Radio Club are proud to announce the Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ special event wide area voice network for the 2012 Hamvention®. MegALinK™ was conceived as a way to provide FM mobile voice coverage from west central Indiana all the way to Dayton, Ohio, and now, in to and on the grounds of the Dayton Hamvention® itself!

After a successful trial run with a mobile simplex node in 2011, the on-site RF system has been upgraded to a stationary UHF VoIP-enabled repeater base station, providing portable coverage at Hara Arena itself, and wide-area connectivity via EchoLink®, IRLP, and RF to the other three MegALinK™ core RF sites in Indiana, as well as any other stations that may wish to connect.

Core Sites participating in the K9NZF Systems™ MegALinK™ are the following:

WA9EOC Repeater
444.675/449.675 Carrier Squelch
EchoLink® N9DEZ-L (Closed - Connection by Permission Only)
IRLP Node 4465 (Primary IRLP Node - Open to All Stations)
Anderson, Indiana
I-70 Coverage from East Indianapolis to approximately IN-3 (I-70 Exit 123)

K9NZF Repeater
443.325/448.325 PL 103.5 Hz
EchoLink® K9NZF-R (Primary EchoLink® Node - Open to All Stations)
Modoc, Indiana
I-70 Coverage from IN-3 (I-70 Exit 123) to approximately I-70 Exit 21 in Ohio

KB9RRN Link
443.325 Simplex Narrowband FM DPL 325
EchoLink® KB9RRN-L (Secondary EchoLink® Node - Open to All Stations)
Greenwood, Indiana
Southwestern Indianapolis Metropolitan Area Coverage

K9NZF Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ On-Site Repeater
444.675/449.675 PL 131.8 Hz
EchoLink® K9NZF-L (Closed - For Linking & Control Purposes ONLY)
Dayton, Ohio
HARA Arena & Immediate Coverage Only

The Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ On-Site Repeater is intended for portable coverage at the Dayton Hamvention®. It is closed to general amateur use by stations not participating in Dayton Hamvention® activities. All amateurs in route to or who are at the Hamvention® are welcome and encouraged to use the system to communicate with any other amateur on the system.

EchoLink® connectivity is also available to all interested stations, both single-user mode (PCs, tablets, and smart phones) and RF simplex links and repeaters, through two EchoLink® nodes and one IRLP node. The primary EchoLink® node for stations wishing to connect is K9NZF-R, EchoLink® node number 443325. The secondary EchoLink® node for stations wishing to connect is KB9RRN-L, EchoLink® node number 541081. IRLP connectivity is available through the WA9EOC Chief Anderson Amateur Radio Club repeater by connecting to IRLP Node 4465.

It is recommended that stations wishing to connect over EchoLink® primarily connect to K9NZF-R (node 443325) as it features higher bandwidth capacity and serves as the hub of the Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ system. K9NZF-L will be online as the Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ On-Site Repeater, however it will not accept incoming connections in order to preserve all available bandwidth for the VoIP backhaul to the K9NZF Repeater master site. If all connection slots on K9NZF-R (node 443325) are full, please use the backup node, KB9RRN-L (node 541081).

Please make sure your EchoLink® or IRLP node is operating properly before connecting to the system. Stations connecting to the system whose nodes are operating improperly and/or causing unreasonable noise or interference (i.e. carrier-squelch operated repeaters or simplex nodes receiving co-channel or malicious interference) will be disconnected by the system control operators, and if necessary, permanently banned from the system.

Please direct any correspondence about the Dayton Hamvention® MegALinK™ system to megalink@k9nzf.com, or visit our web site at http://www.k9nzf.com. Thank you for your interest, and we hope to hear you on the system!