The Hamshack Hotline (HH) is an exclusive full-featured VOIP full-duplex phone system provided to the amateur radio community worldwide. The HH works with IP telephone sets using “Session Initiated Protocol” (SIP). IP (VOIP) phones typically connect to your internet router by a physical ethernet cable. The HH service is free of charge to radio amateurs, however; the sponsors of the system do solicit donations to offset the costs of “cloud” based VM hosting services for the PBX server software. The system was developed by a group of US radio amateurs in 2018 and has gained quite a following of subscribers. This now includes a number of Ottawa area hams as well as many OVMRC members that have joined the system recently including:

(The above list includes their HH phone numbers)

There are several ways of joining the system:

1) By using a “supported” make and model of IP telephone set indicated in the Hamshack Hotline web page: https://wiki.hamshackhotline.com/doku.php?id=kb:supported.endpoints . By requesting service with a supported phone set, you are provided a unique 10 digit phone number (starting with 610) and a URL link that will address your phone (using the LAN IP address for the device) and upload to it a configuration template for the make and model involved. For supported phones, your telephone registers on the “HHUS” server (for the Americas) of which there is now well over 1000 subscribers.

2) Or by using an “unsupported” IP telephone set. However for this option, you are on-your-own to determine the setup and configuration of your phone for proper registration on the HHUX (experimental) server. In response to your request for service, you will be provided your own 10 digit phone number (starting with 550) and the HHUX URL and your unique password which all must be properly entered into the phone by manual configuration. Note that IP phones are typically configured by doing a HTTP session on the IP address of the phone assigned by your router as it resides on your Local Area Network. Note also that all servers on the system are interconnected so that calls originated on one can be equally answered on the other.

3) Or by using one of several available computer and smart phone software applications. Jonathan VE3OTW for instance uses “MicroSip” on his home computer while Ante VA2BBW uses “LinPhone” on his Android phone. Since neither are “supported” applications, they must be registered on the HHUX server. There is also the “Acrobits Groundwire Smartphone App”; it is available a very modest price for Apple IOs and Android based smart phones. This SIP phone app is the only app that is “supported” for use on the HHUS server.

The Cisco “supported” phone models are: WIP-310, SPA-112, SPA-122, SPA-232D, SPA-303, SPA-504, SPA-508, SPA-509, SPA-514, SPA-525G, SPA-941 and SPA-2102. Several of these are available on the surplus market through on-line sites such as EBay and Amazon. However, be careful, you must ensure you obtain a used product that is able to be “Factory Reset” to its default values through user settings. Some surplus phones in previous service have been “locked down” with an administrative password that is difficult to break. A reasonable price for a phone would be $30 to $70. For those that want a nicer phone like the SPA-525G, it may cost more; but this phone has a colour screen, WiFi connection capability and Bluetooth for a wireless headset.

The Hamshack Hotline servers provide several features including:

• Voice mail for receiving unattended calls; this can be personalized with your own greeting.
• Access to a large number of RF links connected to AllStarLink nodes. For instance, by dialing 94069 you can connect to the AllStar “Canada Hub” or by dialing 94152 you can connect to the XLX197B multi-protocol reflector that connects several D-Star and DMR repeaters including VE3RAM. To Tx on an RF link requires dialing *99 and then # to listen again.
• Access to several “Audio Sources” including some public broadcast radio stations and one even provides code copy practice; see: https://apps.hamshackhotline.com:9091/audio.php
• An “Echo” test to appreciate latency on the system.
• Public and Private conference bridges; the OVMRC has now established its own private bridge for special operations which requires special pin codes to use which can be provide on request.

• Public bridges are for any group to use and require no special pin codes to access. One each has been established for each Canadian province and territories by VA2DG.

• The full listing of Hamshack Hotline phone numbers for users and services can be searched at: https://apps.hamshackhotline.com:9091/services.php

In addition, the operation of IP phones provide many set-based features such as:

• Speaker phone
• Visual call display
• Personal directory
• Multi-line selection
• Do Not Disturb (DND)
• Call forwarding
• Last number redialling
• Accurate time and date display (tied to a NTP server)
• Various user selectable ring tones
• Call History recording and display
• Multi-line capability (this allows phone connection to “Asterisk” open source servers that some clubs setup on their own.

Local Source of IP Phones:

We have to thank Frank VE3YY for making available through his son’s business quantity 5 Cisco 504G and 9 Yealink T22P enterprise IP phones; each of these phones sold for $30 each. At the time of this writing, I still have 2 Yealink phones available. Frank says that if there is further local interest in joining the Hamshack Hotline system, his son’s business can provide another quantity of surplus Yealink T21P phones for $50 each. The T21P phone is virtually the same as the T22P but is limited to 2 VOIP accounts as opposed to 3 accounts for the T22P phone. If interested, contact me.

Norm VE3LC

ve3lc@rac.ca

Appears in: Rambler Vol. 65 Issue 3 November 2022