I normally say “N9IJS - John in Chicago, United States” and see if anyone answers. If they don’t, there’s probably no one listening. With a radio, you and the rest of your town can tune in and listen and no one knows you’re listening. With EchoLink, many (if not most) repeaters will “announce” your connection. So treat any connection as one where you just dropped your callsign and are waiting for a reply. You might have connected in the middle of an active QSO, you may have connected to a repeater with *0* active listeners - or anywhere in between. What seems very normal to you might be absolutely fascinating to someone in another country (and vice-versa). You might find that no matter where you go, everyone has the same sort of day-to-day issues.
