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Messages - W7KWS

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1
Palle,

Thanks for the update.  I hadn't used Verizon for inbound traffic for several years and I didn't notice that I am now receiving a non- routable IP address.  A couple of posts I've looked at indicate a large payment to VZW is necessary to change this.

2
I should have also suggested a Verizon 3g or 4g USB modem plugged into the Peplink or computer. It's cheaper than a phone or tablet and is what the Peplink was designed to use.

3
A Peplink Balance router, connected to a verizon 3g or 4g phone or tablet in USB tether mode and connectef to the RemoteRig radio unit with Ethernet, will support a DDNS service such as noip.com or dyndns.com. You will beable to create an Internet name which will not change and which you can include in the RemoteRig. The Peplink will keep the DDNS server updated anytime Verizon changes the IP Address.

The Peplink 20 is an enterprise router and is expensive at around $300, but it's probably more reliable than a computer which can do the same thing in Internet sharing mode.

4
Dear Mitch,

I understand the concept of DDNS quite well after having spent much of my career designing networking hardware and some software.   All I asked for was a simple feature that would have helped me solve a problem and briefly described why.  Your suggestion in response, while not yet having learned much of my system, was to imply that I didn't understand DDNS.  Repeating this over and over with greater specificity was both condescending and insulting.  You could have simply said I'll help you but right now we can't put this on our list of additions.

You are right, I haven't sent you a block diagram of my topology nor documented the reasons for it and I would hate to burden you with having to read and understand the administrative guide of my Cisco VOIP router just to have you arrive at the same conclusions that I have.  I appreciate your offer of a phone call but none of your suggestions to date have fit and I hate to waste your time further. 

The simplest solution to what I'm trying to achieve was to have RemoteRig update noip.com.  If that cannot be added, fine I'll move on and spend my money on the second easiest solution.  That's what I did at my Hawaii location and it will work fine in Washington.  I was just trying to suggest something that others might benefit from and spend my money within the ham radio community.

I appreciate your willingness to help but please, in the future; don't suggest that the person you want to help is ignorant, even if he is.

73,

Bob, W7KWS

5
Dear Mike,

In Washington State, my Cisco SPA-3102 VOIP router has no DDNS support of any kind and works best connected to the WAN due to dynamic port allocation.  It pick off its VOIP traffic as this traffic passes it headed for the LAN.  I know of no other reasonable priced VOIP router that can take its place.

I've tried many combinations of routers behind the Cisco that claim to support DDNS.  The problem is that, with only one exception, all of these routers use their private non-public IP address supplied by the Cisco DHCP server (double NAT) for updating the DDNS server.  Of course this doesn't work.  If we want to become really long we can talk about IP pass through and other methods, none of which the solve my problem for various reasons solve my problem for various reasons that are to involved to be a part of a simple request for a prouct feature.

The one router that I've found that is an exception my PepLink Balance 80 dual WAN router here in Hawaii which has the smarts to send a message to a DNS server and determine my "public" IP address from the response and use that address to update the DDNS server.  I suspect that the RemoteRig does the same thing since it is designed to work behind a router as well.

I had no idea that a request for a simple feature that would make a product more valuable would attract so many alternative suggestions, few of which apply to my situation and many of which I've already tried. 

If the answer was no, fine then no it is and I'll move on.  I'm just trying to make a suggestion that would make the RemoteRig a more valuable item so that it might attracts a wider audience which includes me.  I like the RemoteRig, I own two sets of twins.  They work well but having worked with Bell Labs in the late 1970s, I learned that useful features can always attract additional customers.  I was hoping to pass something on that would motivate me to promote RemoteRig to my friends and colleagues without having to mention any “gotchas” to an otherwise wonderful product.

Most of the responses that have been made in this thread have been made without a full understanding of what stands in my way to achieving a convenient solution.  As I said, I can solve this in other ways but it will be by spending another $290 on another Peplink router for the Washington location.  I could have used that money to buy an additional RemoteRig if this feature were to be included.  It can't be that difficult and I feel that others might find it to be a useful addition.

73,
Bob, Wk7KWS

6
For those following this thread please execute an unconditional jump to my reply #2 above, second sentence and replace "IP address" with "host name".

Adding noip.com and/or other DDNS severs to the RemoteRig would make life easier but it's not critical and I can find other solutions.  It's just that this capability would tempt me to by more of of these units.  But, then again, so would the addition of an internal WiFi radio.

Thanks to Mitch for his suggestions.

Aloha from Kauai,

Bob, W7KWS sk for this thread

7
Dear Mitch,

Thanks for the quick feedback.  I must not be describing my main concern to you very well.  In addition to that concern, I'm shy about adding traffic to the RemoteRig servers that is unrelated to RemotRig.

My main concern is for a backup to update the radio location's IP address.  In your scenario, if there is any failure in the RemoteRig or in its path out to the Internet from my LAN, I'll find myself in the same situation I'm in right now with no updates.  It would be better if I could use my RemoteRig to update noip.com in addition to my computer doing so, once it's back up and working.  This way, one of the two could fail and the other would remain available to update noip.com.  There is no way for this kind of redundancy if I rely solely on the RemoteRig’s servers and the RemoteRig radio for doing updates since there is no other device, that I'm aware of, that will act as a backup and update the RemoteRig DDNS server if the RemoteRig Radio should have a problem doing updates.

Thanks & 73,

Bob, W7KWS

8
Mitch,

Thank you for your suggestion but, unfortunately, my IP address at the far end changes several times a day.  What you suggest is great for a work around but is inconvenient and time consuming to enter the new IP address into all of the clients I have here every time the distant end changes.  In addition to my rotor, Steppir and antenna switch, I have things such as my VOIP telephone OPX line, IP Camera, Etc., none of which have the ability to update DDNS.  There are just too many clients to be updated manually so often.

On the other hand, you have inspired me.  Instead of doing what I suggested, I could reverse my thinking and put a RemoteRig DDNS host name into all of the clients here where I am located.  They should resolve just fine but if the RemoteRig failed I might find myself in the same fix without any backup.  Also, this would add unanticipated traffic for the RemoteRig DDNS servers.  My little bit of traffic might not be a problem but if many others decided to do this, it might not be appreciated.  I have a feeling that multiple devices for updating the DDNS server, whichever one I end up using, will be more reliable.

Any thoughts on this?

Thank you,

Bob, W7KWS

9
Hello Mikael,

I am hoping that you will consider supporting other DDNS services such as noip.com which is still a free ddns service for up to five non-commercial host names.  I realize that you are providing free DDNS service for RemoteRig in addition to supporting DynDNS but it would be helpful to include support for other DDNS services that we use for our general systems.  If the RemoteRig did this it would backup the DDNS client on my computer in case of its failure.

Since my computer crashed, I've lost access to my station.  The RemoteRig still works but I now cannot rotate my beam or switch antennas.  If the RemoteRig was updating the free noip.com I would still have access to these systems which are run separetly from the RemoteRig.

I will look forward to your thoughts on this.  If you need the noip.com settings, the developer is very helpful or I can forward them to you.

Thank you,

Bob, W7KWS

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Well, upon further troubleshooting, it appears that this difficulty is associated with the Wi-Fi connection between this computer and the LAN.  I have no thought as to why but when I hook the PC to an Ethernet connection it works without interruption. 

I'll keep digging.  Thanks for the suggestions.

Bob

11
Mitch & Mike,

Thank you for responding in such a timely way.

I've tried your suggestion and changed the RRC to WEB port 8010 and changed the corresponding port number in the bookmarks on both computers.  Everything worked very well for about an hour.  After that time this computer,  the one that I'm typing on, could no longer access the RRC.  Interestingly, access from my other machine had not timed out yet and it had access so I copied the bookmark from that machine to this one but that didn't help.

I can't argue with you that this is likely a network issue but I didn't change anything to the network or to the RRC within that hour.  This is just a small LAN in my home.  I don't believe that this is a router or NAT issue as I only access the RRC from within the LAN since it is always local to me. 

This is not keeping me from enjoying the RemoteRigs tremendously but it is frustrating that I can't figure this out.

If either of you come up with any ideas in your dreams, please let me know.

I'm going to do one last thing before I post this.  I'm going to pull the 12V power from the back of the RRC and plug it back in to see what happens.  Standby!

Well, there you go,immediate access after a few seconds of boot time.  Boy, I'm stumped.

Best regards,

Bob




12
I have two RemoteRig Twin sets that I use to separate two TS-480SAT rigs via the Internet between two locations or locally via my LANs.  In all cases each of the four units are running 2.46 Firmware.  The routers they are connected to assign a different reserved IP address to each unit based on the unit's MAC address so that the IP is always the same for each unit.  I use separate SIP ports for each pair to keep the audio separated and I've assigned port 8000 for the WEB server ports so that there is no conflict with other WEB servers on the LAN.  Everything has worked very well for several months except for this one difficulty;  the "Control" MKII units can only be accessed from the local PCs browser following a power off/on cycle to the MKII.  If I wait for an hour or two following the power cycle, the PC will not connect until I cycle the power again.

The "Radio" MKII units do not seem to have this difficulty and connect reliably everytime.  I have the same difficulty from two different PCs.  Each of them is running Windows 7 x64 and IE9.

Please let me know if I can adjust the MKII settings to resolve this or if it is the result of a firmware issue that could be addressed in a future release.

Thank you,

Bob

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