No, you're not off your rocker. :) There already exist off-the-shelf commercial boxes that do what you are looking for.
One is made by Omnitronics www.omnitronics.com.au and is their IPR100. You'll need one at each end, and they are in the $1k range per box. Raytheon also makes a similar product, the NXU-2A, www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/nxu_2a/. Its reported to work very well. Not sure on pricing on it. I too would like to find a simple open-source solution too. Don't need any fancy options, just transport 4-wire E&M point to point with good audio quality. The hardware to do IP linking is a lot cheaper than traditional UHF links these days. Please share what you find. Cheers! Lee --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, "Ethercrash" <n4bwp...@...> wrote: > > My repeater group is considering building split-site 6m machine. As an > inter-site link, I was thinking of using some sort of VOIP arrangement via > the internet. I'm curious if anyone has tried something like this: > > My idea is to use a point-to-point, private link (i.e. not IRLP or Echo) to > pump audio and maybe even some signaling between sites. The receive site > would consist of the receive radio, controller (most likely an Arcom), and a > PC to do the encoding/streaming. The transmit site would consist of a PC to > decode the audio stream, a PL decoder for TX logic, and the TX radio. The > basic premise would be to take audio from the RX (PL filtered), fed thru the > controller, mixed with link PL, and fed to the PC's audio input. The PC then > streams the audio over the internet to the RX site PC, where it is decoded > and fed to the TX radio, which will be keyed by a PL decoder (provided the IP > encode/decode process hasn't mangled the PL). > > Whew... Now, question is: will it work? Or more properly, has anyone made > this work? I'm going to try it on a small scale just to prove concept, but > I'm curious if anyone has tried this already. My intention is to use > something along the lines of Winamp with Shoutcast or Windows Media Encoder > to stream the audio. I'd rather find a Linux-based CLI encoder if such an > animal exists. I had thought about using IRLP nodes as endpoints, but IRLP > policy would preclude that. > > Thoughts? Encouragement? FTW is he THINKING?!?! ;) I'd be interested in the > group's thoughts, and I'll report the results of my experiments. > > Thanks & 73, > Brian, N4BWP >
