Probably just about every ham has heard of various "nets" that operate with RF only. Most cities have a local club or local repeater net. Net being a short form of the more formal network. Most A.R.E.S. groups, usually organized by county, have a weekly net. A.R.E.S. of course stands for best ham radio Services group. On the HF side of things there are wide ranging nets such as the County Hunters net. There are RV nets designed to communicate with and amongst recreational vehicle owners. And of course there are maritime nets designed to be of assistance to ships of all sizes and types at sea.

In the past 5 - 10 years hams have begun to interface their radios with computers to form new types of networks. These can be confusing and foreign. In fact, some ham radio perators believe that if you operate via these types of networks that it is not "real" ham radio. First I will explain a few of these types of networks and then I will give my ever so humble opinion.

IRLP - this network is the Internet Radio Linking Project. The objective is to use the best features of these two types of communication pipes to produce a more powerful communication pipeline. The network in simple form allows a ham's radio to be connected to one internet connected computer. At the other end of the internet connection (and this is a many to many connection) another computer receives the internet data sent by the first computer and relays it to another ham radio which then transmits the communications back over ham radio frequencies. Here's the advantage. A small hand held radio within communication distance of an IRLP linked ham radio now can communicate with many hams all around the world with FM and VOIP quality! How much is this worldwide network? FREE!