Posted: 4/28/2014 3:20:23 AM EDT
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Anyone have much experience with this?
I've been trying to collect all of the W1AW stations for a W1AW WAS...as it turns out, I will be away from home for one station that I missed during the first go around. I will have high speed Internet access at my location and thought it might be a fun time to try out remote controlling my station over the Internet. I have a 7200. I know that ICom makes a piece of software for just this purpose. I have also seen a youtube video shoing that I can do the same thing with HRD/Skype well. Is one of these two options better than the other? Should I be looking at something else entirely? |
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Very doable -
Remote in to your machine using something like VNC or "go to my pc . com". Have it controlling the radio via HRD or other CAT software. For the audio, most people use Skype and VOX - they set it up to auto answer calls, and they will call in via Skype to work the station. This is the "I'm Feeling Lucky" when I google ham radio remote control skype This approach works but has many working pieces. There are other options from other vendors, but this is certainly the quickest and cheapest approach. Best part is that you could run your radio from your smart phone or tablet. |
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If you have your station already set up for HF digital
and If you have a dedicated shack computer connected to the internet and The shack computer is running some sort of rig control program (e.g. Ham Radio Deluxe for Windows, Flrig for linux, etc.) then You are 50% of the way there! 
After this the problem has three parts. Part 1--remote rig control My preferred approach to this is to simply remote view the shack computer that is running the rig control program. For Windows I personally like Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) because it is very fast, but you have to be running a "Pro" version of either XP, Vista, 7 or 8 on the shack PC. Alternatively use one of these methods. For linux VNC seems to be the go-to solution. At this point you can also run your favorite digi mode software on the shack PC and thereby run digital modes remotely. This actually works pretty well because a little bit of latency doesn't really hurt you on most digital modes. Heck, if the internet stutters the buffer on the shack PC keeps filling and eventually your remote screen will update. Part 2--remote SSB voice RemAud is the best solution I've seen for Windows. I use the GSM 8KHz 8 bit setting for absolute lowest latency, it's plenty fine for SSB phone. It also includes a method for serial port PTT. The latency with RemAud is much, much better than Skype or something like that. If you are using linux or ultimately decide messing with your router (see below) to get RemAud working then my apologies, I don't have a suggestion for you other than Skype. Part 3--remote PTT For digital this is easy since you are essentially just remoting the screen and keyboard as described in Part 1 above. For voice this is a bit more difficult. If you use serial port PTT then on Windows use RemAud if you can and you will be all set. For voice if you are using CAT PTT, or are using Skype, or are a linux user, then you will be forced to key the rig using your radio control program, which works but is a bit kludgy. Either way there is enough latency in PTT, even with RemAud, that breaking in on a pile-up is very tricky. For regular QSOs it's fine, though. Other Possibilities Both Icom and Kenwood make some pretty neat all in one remote software solutions. They both still require a dedicated shack PC and some sort of digital mode setup (audio and rig command connections). The Icom softwarecosts money. The Kenwood software is free. You have to have one of the compatible rigs that the software supports. I've never used either one, but I do know that the Kenwood software will only use your default sound device on the shack PC which is very limiting. Opening Ports in Your Router If you are using RDP, RemAud, Icom or Kenwood software you will need to open special ports in your router to allow access outside of your home AND you will need either a static IP address or a dynamic DNS hostname. If you are not a computer geek what I just said is probably gibberish to you and this will absolutely be the hardest part to understand. If you just want to run the rig from the comfort of your living room couch then you don't need to do this. If you do decide to get this all working, definitely get it all working from your couch first! Then start in on the router setup stuff. If you want to avoid fooling with any router stuff then the only solution is to use one of the commercial screen sharing services like LogMeIn and, for audio, Skype or equiv. However your performance will suffer quite a bit going through their servers instead of running directly into your house through your router. Thoughts on Station Stability and Readiness for Remote Operation Your station needs to be 100% bulletproof. For example you do not want to find out the hard way that when you transmit PSK at 40W on 20M (or whatever) that the station crashes, freezes, locks up or does anything else bad involving radio, computer, tuner, power supply, network, etc. I strongly suggest you test the station for every mode and freq. you plan to use locally on your local net (from your couch), get all your audio levels and everything else squared away, then test again with the XYL or somebody else home just in case power needs to be cycled. Yes, I've made that call myself, "Uh, honey, would you mind going to my radio and turning it off and back on again?" 
Obviously you need to be using an auto tuner and, if QRO, an automatic band-switching amp. Be conservative when tuning up and take extra time and care because again, if something decides to lock-up, crash or, worse, melt, then you are in a world of hurt. You also need some way to monitor your meters remotely. This is where HRD or the commercial Icom and Kenwood solutions (or PowerSDR if you are using a Flex) work much better than something like Flrig. Otherwise you might not know that you've got high VSWR because the squirrels were at it again while you were away. |
| FYI, TeamViewer is a nice remote control application for PCs or Macs, and does not require that you open any ports in your router. It is free for personal use. If you're doing digital it's worth trying. |
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Quoted:
FYI, TeamViewer is a nice remote control application for PCs or Macs, and does not require that you open any ports in your router. It is free for personal use. If you're doing digital it's worth trying. I have to agree.....Team Viewer is a great program for remote applications. |
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Quoted:
I have to agree.....Team Viewer is a great program for remote applications. Quoted:
Quoted:
FYI, TeamViewer is a nice remote control application for PCs or Macs, and does not require that you open any ports in your router. It is free for personal use. If you're doing digital it's worth trying. I have to agree.....Team Viewer is a great program for remote applications. Interesting, I've used it before, but I've never for anything like this. I don't find port forwarding on my router to be a big issue either though so that's not a really a big deal for the other options. Thanks again for all of the input! I appreciate it a lot! |
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Let us know if you try any of this stuff out. Will do. I'll try to do a write up with what works and doesn't work for me. I'm just in the planning stages of this at the moment, but would like to get everything setup and well tested by June so I have a few weeks. Just thinking out loud, but I'll a Remote Desktop application of some sort will probably be helpful too so I can change power output on digital modes with the volume control on the PC. I have some fairly low latency IP cameras ... I may direct one of them sat my station to be able to check in on it while I'm operating remote as well.
One issue that I can't solve is how to handle a power outage. I guess I'm just out of luck if that happens no UPS here. |