Leigh L Klotz, Jr. wrote: . > > One thing that Skype does well is negotiate connectivity for the audio. > It can use peer-to-peer UDP or TCP or HTTP[ gateway CONNECT streaming, > or as a last resort, a geographically-located Skype server that both > parties can get too. There some quite complex stuff they do to get > through firewalls without any help from the user. > > 73, > Leigh/WA5ZNU
Getting through firewells is also the only thing Skype does well as far as ham radio is concerned. Skype is optimized for voice phone calls, period. IP Sound by SM5VXC has a variety of compression formats available. It sounds much better for CW and for noisy phone QSO's. Also, it has a lower bit rate than Skype. On the other hand, the slave end of the channel must be on a static IP, or a dynamic DNS DHCP IP. And you have to select a port that your ISP doesn't block. The default port, 4444, happens to be blocked by Comcast. You can get the best of both worlds by using a free VPN tunnel with IP sound, as described in the IRB google group. People report that this is as good if not better than Skype for getting through firewalls. I have not needed to resort to this to get IP Sound to work. Rick N6RK
