Access Policies

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Access Policies

The following guidelines are followed for all stations requesting access to the EchoLink^® system.  These guidelines have been established to help ensure legal, courteous enjoyment of the system by every station.  Every effort is made to apply these policies universally and fairly.

Although EchoLink is offered free of charge, please keep in mind that it is a privately-operated system. All EchoLink users are guests on the system, and are being permitted the use of it in exchange for following these guidelines.

1. Licensed Amateurs only: Access is granted only to licensed Amateur Radio operators holding a CEPT Class 2 license, or equivalent.  Each new user must provide proof of license before access is granted, using any of several available Validation methods.  Please see Authentication and Validation Documents for more information.
2. No listen-only access: No "SWL" (listen-only) access is permitted.  EchoLink is a two-way system by design, and there is no mechanism to validate listen-only stations.
3. Sysop nodes: Sysop validations (i.e. -L/-R suffixes) are granted only to licensees whose class of license permits operation of an Internet voice gateway.  However, it is the licensee's responsibility to ensure that any additional permits or authorizations are obtained if required by the governing authorities. 
4. Amateur service only: Stations operating in Sysop mode may interconnect EchoLink only with equipment operating on Amateur frequencies.  EchoLink does not permit use of the system with other services such as GMRS, FRS, or MARS.  For security reasons, it is also not permitted to interconnect EchoLink with other VoIP systems that support direct access from a computer.
5. Courtesy: Stations which use the system are expected to abide by common courtesy and generally-accepted operating practices.  Access privileges will be withdrawn for stations which operate with malicious intent, blatant disregard for international Amateur Radio regulations, or impersonation of another station.
6. Courtesy pt2: When based upon complaints from several other users, repeated incidents of rude, threatening, or vulgar remarks from a particular station will not be tolerated, and is considered grounds for withdrawal of access privileges.  This policy applies to any transmissions from a station, including those received over an RF link.  Rude or threatening remarks directed at members of the volunteer support team will also not be tolerated.
7. Protect your password: Once validated, a station must not share or "lend" its password to another station, particularly to an individual who is not licensed. In addition, any user who tries to present forged documents for validation, or documents obtained without permission, will be permanently barred.
8. Permanent callsigns only: Please use only your permanent, fixed-station callsign to log in.  Avoid using portable designators (e.g., K1RFD/2 or PY2/K1RFD), or temporary, special-event, or commemorative callsigns; these callsigns will not be validated.  This helps keep the callsign database to a manageable size. Think of your EchoLink callsign as a user name on the system, which is not necessarily the same as you would use to identify yourself on the air.
9. One callsign per person: If you hold multiple callsigns, please request validation of only one callsign for EchoLink. As a rule, we will not validate more than one basic callsign per user in Single-User mode. This holds true even if you travel from one country to another and hold callsigns in each country -- please use only one callsign with EchoLink, even while traveling.
10. Sysop callsigns: If your node is an RF gateway, it must use a callsign that ends in -L or -R. Use -R if it's a link to a repeater, and -L if it's a simplex frequency. EchoLink does not support or allow "headless" or "gateway" nodes which have neither a microphone nor a connected radio, with the exception of duly-validated Conference servers.
11. One login per IP address: The design of the system requires that every logged-in station have a distinct public IP address. This means that you cannot successfully (and may not) run two or more nodes behind the same IP address, as would typically be the case in a home network. Instead, the second node would need to use a Public Proxy, a Relay, or your own virtual private network (VPN) subscription. Nodes disregarding this rule are subject to being blocked.
12. One login at a time: Any given callsign must not be logged in from two or more machines at the same time. You can run W1ABC and W1ABC-L at the same time, but not two different installations of W1ABC, or of W1ABC-L. If you're setting up your node on a new computer, please shut the old one down. Nodes disregarding this rule are subject to being blocked.
13. Clubs: Club and repeater callsigns must be used for RF links (Sysop mode) only. EchoLink will not validate a club or repeater callsign for use in single-user mode.
14. Conference policies: Conference servers (with callsigns beginning and ending with an asterisk) have a specific set of access policies. Please see Conference Servers.
15. At-will: Although every effort will be made to apply these policies universally and fairly, the EchoLink Support staff reserves the right to withdraw a station's access privileges at any time, without notice.  EchoLink is a privately owned and operated system that has no connection with, and is not governed by, any radio licensing authority. 

Please note that the EchoLink software allows additional security policies to be adopted by individual stations.  For example, a station not wishing to be joined to a conference can disallow such access.  These decisions are made by each individual station and are not under the control of the developers of EchoLink, or the servers with which it operates.