Messages

16

General discussion forum / Re: WiFi & Profiles Strange Behaviour

« on: 2013-10-27, 10:59:53 »

Thanks Jan,

I have now upgraded my version of the setup manager. It is a shame as I have a set of demonstrations that I can run from my various ststions but not easily without the simple switch by changing profiles.
I am wondering if it might be possible to keep the current way that the WiFi works on the default profile but add an option on the 'save' to enable the SSID & Key entered to be stored within a particular profile.
If you are interested in a copy of the talk which I gave at the RSGB convention please drop me a direct email.

73
John G4SWX

17

General discussion forum / Re: breaking up on tx and rx sometimes

« on: 2013-10-26, 18:52:21 »

Derek,

It might help a little to increase the buffer length but I suspect that the other PC is grabbing all of the available bandwidth at the remote site. I use a buffer size of 16 and jitter 14 for Internet connections. The only sure way to deal with this is imposing either rate limiting or a QoS preference on the router at the remote site. If you are using WiFi at the remote site also consider going to a hard wired Ethernet connection using FTP or STP cable - not UTP. HTTP traffic from PCs tends to be bursty and eat as much bandwith as the router or WiFi can supply. Worse still are webcams which often cause similar problems.

73
John G4SWX

18

General discussion forum / WiFi & Profiles Strange Behaviour

« on: 2013-10-26, 18:44:03 »

Hi All,

I have encountered an issue with the way in which WiFi SSIDs and keys are stored and recalled in the RRC-1258.

I have several remote stations with different capabilities; TS2000, K3, VHF and 144MHz EME all using different ports etc and therefore have set up my control RRC with a number of different profiles. I sometimes run from different locations and apart from some hotel systems where they insist on authentication with a HTTP form all is fine with wired Ethernet. This authentication problem caused a demonstration that I had set-up for my talk on remote operation at the RSGB convention a week ago to fail:-(

I have recently tried running using WiFi access from a number of places where I have not known the SSID and key in advance. These are 'normal' WiFi systems with no additional authentication. If the SSID and key are known in advance there is no problem dropping them, beforehand into the WiFi settings of the respective profile using the web interface, preferably whilst the RRC-1258 is connected to a wired Ethernet system.
However if you go to a new location with working WiFi and then use the set-up manager via the USB interface to a PC to set up the WiFi parameters, these seem to be all are stored in the 'default' profile whichever profile has been selected beforehand. I suspect that this is a minor error in addressing the memory location from this form.

If you then change the RRC-1258, using the Setup manager to the correct profile to enable you to connect to the remote station whose parameters are stored in that profile it will no longer have a WiFi connection as the SSID and key is not stored against that profile.
This is very frustrationg as it seems that the only way to switch radios in this situation is to edit all of the parameters in the default profile.

I hope this all makes sense. If anybody has found an easy way around this please let me know.

73
John G4SWX

19

General discussion forum / Re: JT65 via Remoterig?

« on: 2013-08-14, 21:21:34 »

Hi Thomas,

Yes JT65 works well.  I had 120 JT65B 144MHz EME QSOs remotely from my station last year as GB2EME with no real problems.
Do not use any compression, A-Law etc as they do distort the incoming signal and that will fool the JT65 decoder on very weak signals.
I used 16 bit 8KHz for an easy life - you do not need to carefuly set levels. I have decoded callsigns on 144MHz JT65B EME at -29/-30 at times.
With very careful setting of all levels; rig, RRC-1258 and computer I have used linear 12bits bits 8KHz. With 8 bit A-law I have had some QSOs but would not use it for weak signal working.

73
John G4SWX

20

General discussion forum / Re: NAT and UDP ports

« on: 2013-07-30, 12:09:26 »

Hi Mitch,

I should have guessed that because the protocol incorporates SIP you cannot NAT the UDP ports in the middle.
As I now have 3 radio RRCs running changeover is becoming complicated...

73
John G4SWX

21

General discussion forum / NAT and UDP ports

« on: 2013-07-29, 18:35:08 »

After 2 years of great remote operation (including exhibition stations) I have decided to upgrade my station to allow me to control several radio RRCs. I have a linked private IP network and obviously I can choose the ports and IP addresses to be whatever I want. I have chosen the same port numbers for command/SIP/Audio on all radio RRCs. To change a control RRC from one radio to another I simply change the profile to another radio RRC destination IP address and all works fine.
However, there is only one external Internet IP address and I wanted to be able to address more than one radio RRC over the Internet.

What I tried and so far failed to get running is to NAT (13000 to 13001 etc) the three UDP streams from one of the radio RRCs at my firewall (Cisco 1801). I then changed to control RRC to match the same external port numbers. This would be nice as I could keep the inside network the same but address multiple radios over the Internet by simply changing the ports from profile to profile.

Looking at the status of the control and radio RRC after attempting a connection shows differing in/out ports for command/SIP/Audio so I presume that the communications protocol will not accept UDP NAT. Is this correct?

I realise that if this is the case I will have to change the ports so that each radio RRC has a different set and then simply open the relative UDP ports on the firewall. Any other thoughts on how to configure the network gateway for multiple radio RRCs?


73
John G4SWX

22

General discussion forum / Re: RRC Switching Regulator Noise

« on: 2013-03-11, 14:31:48 »

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I have already got rid of the Ethernet noise and for my application, 144MHz EME, the residual noise from the RRC1258 is still detectable and therefore I need to reduce/remove it.

It seems very clear from my measurements that the noise is very low at HF but not around 145/290MHz, it is quite possible that a simple modification could reduce it to an almost undetectable level.

Are there circuits available so that I can look to modify or replace the on-board switching regulator with an external linear one?

73
John G4SWX

23

General discussion forum / Re: RRC Switching Regulator Noise

« on: 2013-03-11, 11:55:30 »

I have been doing further measurements with a spectrum analyser and have attached two screen shots. They have been taken with an control RRC1258 (the lid on) with a Kenwood RC2000, speaker and microphone attached. The 12V power feed was threaded 3 times through a BN43-3312 balun core as close to the plug onto the RRC1258 as possible. The spectrum analyser pick up is simply a 5cm loop of wire fed by coax and held close to the RRC1258 box. Both attached screen shots are centred at 150MHz, one a 100MHz wide scan and the other 10MHz. As can be seen on the 10MHz wide scan the noise has significant peaks and troughs that can be 'tuned' by changing the applied voltage by 100mV or so. By tuning the 'noise' I can now show that it is easily detectable with an FT817 with a short helical antenna at 3m distance.
It seems to me that some of the internal filtering on the internal switching regulator is ineffective at VHF. Indeed there is a stronger peak of noise around 290MHz.

I am hoping that either somebody else has had a similar problem and resolved it or there is a simple component change from the design team.

73
John G4SWX

24

General discussion forum / RRC Switching Regulator Noise

« on: 2013-03-10, 22:32:27 »

I have been using a number of RRC128 MkII for several years with great success, including a 144MHz moonbounce demonstration station as GB2EME.

However I have always been aware of some low level noise around both the control and radio RRC1258 boxes. As I have to run another remote 144MHz EME demonstration in a month or so I thought I would check things out. After having ensured that all Ethernet connections in the shack were screened and all power supplies were linear I still could observe a small increase in the noise floor from the direction of my shack. Switching off the RRC1258 eliminated the noise! After removing the Ethernet connection careful checks with firstly a FT817 portable RX and then with a spectrum analyser with a loop pick-up showed that the noise source was the RRC1258 12V power supply lead. Changing the power supply demonstrated that the source was indeed the RRC1258. The noise is identical in both radio and control RRCs (I have several units and all are the same).

The noise has a 50MHz wide peak centred around 150MHz and consists of a comb of unstable peaks with a spacing of around 6-800KHz. This spacing varies with changing the applied voltage around 12V.
It seems to be coming from the switching regulator within the RRC1258 and being radiated from the power supply lead which I note is floating from the RRC case gnd. This probably means that a screened 12V lead will still radiate.

I would really like to eliminate this noise as it does degrade the station performance.

So; has anybody else observed noise coming from the RRC1258 12V power leads? Have you cured it?

Have the design team got any suggestions on additional filtering?  I can see what looks like a series TDK bifilar SMD choke and parallel capacitor on the 12V line as it enters the RRC1258.
Further I wonder if I am going to have the same problems with webswitches and the RC-1216H that I have?

73
John G4SWX

25

General discussion forum / Re: webswitch 1216H malfunktion

« on: 2012-10-05, 17:04:15 »

> In your opinion I take it the Webswitch should not be allowed to access a single thing outside
> the local network in order to be considered "secure/reliable"?

Yes that is correct - dependancy on an external service outside the control of the user reduces the overall availability/reliability of the device. However I certainly accept that you might have to allow DNS to enable effective communications with the user!


> Have you tried disabling the "Enable external help pages" setting under "Advanced settings"?
> That should stop the external help page access.

Thank you - I had not because I was not previously aware that this was available and enabled. I have now disabled it and indeed would recomend that after initial testing/set-up that everybody else does so.

However, as somebody with very considerable experience in information security I still consider that as a matter of overall system availability/reliability that the Javascript should not contact your server at all, until the user invokes the help function.

73
John G4SWX

26

General discussion forum / Re: webswitch 1216H malfunktion

« on: 2012-10-05, 15:59:30 »

Jan,

I consider that this has revealed a serious longer term issue that I think that you need to address.

It is clear that the Javascript downloaded from the Webswitch to the browser contains more than just a simple script invoking the help button. From the observed behaviour during the problem I am presuming that when each a new Webswitch page is loaded that the browser checks whether the help file for that page is available from your server. Hence when a translation capability was put on the web site the interaction generated a problem with that script.

Although I understand that such a feature can make the help function very user friendly, I view it as a serious security/reliability issue which can hamper the ability of any user to exercise complete control over their own Webswitch. I want the Webswitch to work as a stand alone system and not depend upon what you do with your website. I have performed a simple test by blocking Internet access to the browser and observing a slower response when changing Webswitch pages when it could not reach the server on 213.180.92.20.

Therefore I am asking you to revise the Javascript in the next code update to only communicate with your site when the help button is invoked.

73
John G4SWX

27

General discussion forum / Re: webswitch 1216H malfunktion

« on: 2012-10-04, 11:42:48 »

Thank you Jan,

control of the Webswitch is restored!
73
John G4SWX

28

General discussion forum / Re: webswitch 1216H malfunktion

« on: 2012-10-04, 11:28:58 »

Exactly the same problem. See http://www.remoterig.com/forum/index.php?topic=1548.0

I suspect that it is the way that Microsoft's IE8 interprets the Javascript from the webswitch

73
John

29

General discussion forum / Browser Redirects to Help pages

« on: 2012-10-04, 11:27:09 »

I have run into a new problem this morning, when I go to the 'set relays', 'inputs' 'profiles' or several of the other pages the browser redirects to the Webswitch help pages on the Internet. I have experienced this problem on three different PCs - all Win XP with Internet Explorer 8.
This is making it almost impossible to control the webswitch. I have cleared the browser caches etc and even managed to restart the webswitch. The problem remains.
It was running perfectly yesterday, as it has done for over 6 months so all I can think of is a Microsoft update has changed the way that the browser executes the javascript from the Webswitch.
The Webswitch software version is 2.52

Any thoughts, suggestions etc??

73
John G4SWX

30

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Re: Idiom Press Rotor Controller via USB port on RRC

« on: 2012-08-06, 21:24:10 »

The simple answer is do not use Idiom Press cards. There are a number of people that have wasted a lot of time with Idiom Press cards in similar configurations and there are always problems: for instance see
http://www.remoterig.com/forum/index.php?topic=1233.msg5283#msg5283
There are also many other complaints on other fora.
I would recommend changing to an Easy-rotor card: http://easy-rotor-control.com/
I have been using these for 14+ months with the RRC1258 without a problem.
They also seem OK with some USB to RS232 converters on the RRC1258. I am using an Easy-rotor card with a Wiznet RS232 over Ethernet card in conjunction with Virtual Serial Port software for one of my rotators.

73
John G4SWX