To enable us to identify UK based repeaters and links there has to be a better way to inform users and software of a link or repeaters location and its operating characteristics and by implication and indication of its coverage area.

Whilst there is a limited amount of space available in the echolink description field a simple text based encoding scheme will provide all of the required information to operators and software alike.

We propose that the desciption field is encoded as follows:

LOCATOR-CHANNEL-TONEGROUP

MB7IBG for example    IO92CK-145.2125-A

GB3UI for example       IO92CK-RB01-A

GB3DX for Example     IO92CK-RV57-A

The idea is that a repeater is designated a channel and we use this in the encoding hence we dispense with the band identifier and use the channel identifier only, in the case of a gateway we use the band identifier and use the operating frequency.

The MPT1306 tone groups in use are as follows and mirror the tones used by the RSGB ETCC for repeater tone desigation that is transmitted as one character as part of the repeater beacon. There are tones that are avoided in the standard as these are twice the UK mains frequency and can cause issues.

CTCSS Tone Groups