I've done IRLP over a couple of different types of satellite connections (and as an "official" tech support volunteer, I must add that IRLP "doesn't recommend" this). It works.
Latency never really seemed to be all that bad. We listened to it, and yeah... our voice into the rig was ahead of the other side coming out on a land-line based node, but it was possible to communicate just fine. The bigger problem seems to be packet loss. Sometimes words would get dropped, even with IRLP's relatively new buffers that were put in place not too long back (relatively... I've been doing IRLP now for almost 10 years?). But in-between those dropouts, everything's fine. Switching to a lower CODEC for the node to node connection, (GSM, roughly 12 Kb/S) or using a GSM channel on a Reflector if multiple nodes are participating in some event, helps sometimes. I could get the owner of one of these systems to call you on your local IRLP node, if you want to hear it. He could also describe who's satellite service he's using. Some node owners on the IRLP mailing list a while back reported good luck with WildBlue, haven't heard that much good about StarBand or DirectTV's offering... and of course, Hughes dedicated service ($$$) also works fine. This is all kinda "water under the bridge" to me -- I'm more interested in finding out if Icom's D-STAR Gateways can successfully operate (they're much more latency sensitive than IRLP or anything that's just an audio stream) on a satellite link. Don't have all the "stuff" here I'd need to test it and find out, though! To buy an extra repeater, controller, and gateway just for a test isn't in the cards. (GRIN) Nate WY0X -----Original Message----- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:56 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] Split site link via IP Mike, I'm curious regarding latency issues, especially if using VoIP for connections like IRLP or remote voice links. Did you experience them when on satellite, or was it a "non-issue" in your experience? And I assume your connections losses while on the bird were due to "rain fade" or similar??? Mark - N9WYS
