I’m away from home and stumbled onto some kind of global net controlled today by a Scottish guy. It was probably 4pm Chicago time, so 2200 UTC. What is that, how is there a global net? I think they said something about EchoLink but I’m new and really only recognize the name but not how it works.
Ok. Probably echo link then. In short - the repeater uses the internet as another transport. Other repeaters can link up, or you can even use their application to activate repeaters right from your computer.
You can also do similar things with other digital modes (DMR etc) but they require special radios that speak that standard.