Echolink
Echolink is a VOIP network that interconnects relays, link transceivers and individual Amateur Radio operators around the world.
In order to participate, you must send a copy of your license document to a FAX number is USA where they administrate the accounts. After the registration is completed, you can use the Echolink software on your PC to connect to one of many thousands of stations around the globe and transmit over them. I have easily had a QSO with an operator in the backland of Port Macquarie in NSW in Australia. If you have a handheld with CTCSS enabled, you can also do that with any Echolink-enabled regular relay. Just tell your relay that it should connect to another relay, and you can start calling CQ in Australia while on a mountain tour in the Bavarian Alps.
I am building up a link that lets me participate in technical conversation on 144.510 in the region north of Regensburg while I am at home in Munich, some 150 kilometers away. For that purpose, I am using the infrastructure of the Echolink network. See: A Low-Power Combined Echolink and ATV Server
Possibly at a later point of time when everything works, I may apply for a regular repeater license and offer this service to the worldwide community of Radio Amateurs.
