Hamshack Hotline


We previously mentioned that Amateur (Ham) Radio is one of the most effective means of maintaining communication without the need to rely on commercial communications infrastructure. Ham radio is also a great hobby as well as providing an alternate means of communication during your regular daily activities. Here in Cascadia (the Pacific Northwest) it is very common to have good access to a radio repeater in areas where cellular access is poor or non-existent.

One very useful service available to any licensed Ham is the Hamshack Hotline, a dedicated Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) network that is free to amateur radio operators around the world. The goal of the Hamshack Hotline is not to replace the traffic that is carried over RF, but rather augment it when conditions are diminished or otherwise busy.

To set up Hamshack Hotline you must be a licensed Ham radio operator, and you must have a compatible Cisco SIP phone (current acceptable phone models are Cisco SPA-303, SPA-504, SPA-525). Refurbished Cisco phones are available for $30-$50. Connect your phone to your home router, provision the phone with Hamshack Hotline, and you will be assigned a number and connected to other Hamshack Hotline users world-wide.

Hamshack Hotline also offers several connections to repeaters over AllStar, bridges for group calls, and even streaming audio from commercial stations such as the BBC World Service.

As long as you can connect your Hamshack Hotline phone to an Internet connected router you can access the network; so with a portable router your Hamshack Hotline can go portable.

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