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Messages - g4swx

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1
General discussion forum / RRC1258 Possible Vulnerability
« on: 2018-04-19, 12:20:44 »
Hi Folks,

I have been a RRC1258 user for over 7 years with 5 systems in use on a remote site.
I have changed all of the default port numbers on the RRC1258 and am using 2.91 software on all systems. I use a Cisco 1800 series router on my internet connection, which has a fixed IP address, with standard NAT and firewall rules for port translation.

I also have a 18Mbps radio link directly into the remote ststion LAN.
On Monday 16th the RRC1258 controlling one of the radios was being reset by something. The radio went off (checked on CCTV) and the uptime counter on the RRC1258 reset to zero.
I drove to the radio site and a lot of work followed. I changed and checked the PSU which is an obvious first step. In the end I cloned the RRC1258 settings and put another RRC1258 together with another radio in place. I then changed the Netgear LAN switch.

I was amazed that with a different RRC1258 that the fault continued after a random 3-30min interval and the RRC1258 reset itself. Therefore I changed the RRC1258 internal IP address to hide it from the Internet, all was fine and has been since!

I then took the original RRC1258 and ran it, stand alone, on the LAN with the original IP address so that the key ports could be seen on the Internet.
This RRC1258 continued to be reset at random, 2-30min intervals. None of the other RRC1258 systems, radio or control, most of which have Internet visible ports, were impacted.
This behaviour continued for another 4 hours. Switching off all NAT on the firewall stopped the problem. This verified that I had not got a problem on the LAN.

On the following days I left the RRC1258 as a 'tethered lamb' but with more extensive monitoring on the firewall. Unfortunately the attack had stopped.
Apart from cracking the user name and password combination on the RRC1258 web interface which is possible but not that likely the only other possibility is that a TCP or UDP attack (I have taken care only to open TCP or UDP ports and NAT as required) will reset a RRC1258.

So my questions are:
Has anybody seen anything similar - ie RRC1258 resetting?
Has anybody tried penetration testing the open ports on a RRC1258?

73
John G4SWX
(retired network secirity engineer)


2
General discussion forum / Internet Explorer Temorary Files
« on: 2017-10-18, 17:02:52 »
I have had a number of issues with the PC on which I use the browser to control the web switch which I used to control my amateur ststion. The PC is running Windows 7 professional and IE 11.
The main problem is the aggregation of hundreds of thousands of 'setswitch', 9 byte files in the Temorary Internet Files cache. As the numbers increase the IE browser performance take a real hit!
Likewise the RC1216H that I use seems to generate a large number of temporary files.
I realise that if I unclick 'Preserve Favourites website data' and enable 'Delete browsing history on exit' that I can cure this problem but at the sacrifice that the loading of the pages becomes rather slow over the constrained data connection.
Has anybody any thoughts on resolving this one?

73
John G4SWX

3
Steffen writes: > In the new AlfaSpid Controllers, the RS232 connection have been replaced with a USB Connector.

This is really bad news as although I don't use RS232 tunnels over the RRC1258 I do use RS232 over Ethernet with Wiznet stand alone cards and virtual serial port software to remote many of my station components. I was considering the AlfaSpid BIG RAS for my next EME system.........
I have tried a number of USB over Ethernet, so called 'solutions' but all result in bursts of very high bandwidth traffic.

73
John G4SWX

4
General discussion forum / Re: JT65 and Latency
« on: 2015-02-26, 22:34:01 »
Mark writes:
> Hi John, The Elecraft K3 "Twin" setup uses Audio Quality 2 – Linear 16 bits 8 kHz. Is that a
> good setting for digital modes, and can you briefly explain how you set the levels properly?
> Thanks, Mark K6UFO

Audio Quality 2 is a linear transfer mode which does not employ ALAW compression and hence it is excellent for digital modes. I normally run a TS2000 on 144MHz and a K3 on HF both with this setting. My comment about setting up levels was specificaly aimed at those that use digital modes with Audio Settings that use ALAW compression.

As you are running with Audio Quality 2 careful setting of levels is not so important as the RRC 1258 has a huge amplitude range.
On RX, as I set it up running with AGC off and have set the background noise from the RX to be around 15dB above the background noise from the RRC1258 but it is not so critical.
On TX I have set the system up where there is low noise out of the TX (>45dB down on single tones) when the audio tones from the computer are off.

What is probably more important with JT65 is to set-up the transmitter so that the processor is off and there is minimum ALC.

73
John G4SWX

5
General discussion forum / Re: JT65 and Latency
« on: 2015-02-25, 15:24:21 »
I would very much doubt if latency is your problem!
I operate a lot of JT65 and FSK441 on 144MHz having had over 3,000 remote 144MHz JT65 EME QSOs in the past 4 years. I have deliberately increased the buffer size (and therefore increased latency) to between 16 and 20 to minimise lost UDP RX packets which is critical for really weak signal JT65.  I do exactly the same on TX. I also use Dimension4 to ensure correct timing of the PC. I can measure around 120-150ms total delay between the computer and final TX signal!

On TX you must ensure that you are not distorting the JT65 tones. This will cause your signal to be undecodable when weak. You should switch off any speech processor and reduce the audio level until you have a minimum amount of ALC indicated.

One word of warning:  ::) Do not run the remote rig system with an audio quality setting which uses ALAW. Unless you understand how ALAW compression works and are very skilled at setting up the TX and RX levels at both ends ALAW will distort JT65 signals badly!!!

73
John G4SWX

6
General discussion forum / Re: remoterig out of service
« on: 2015-02-25, 15:03:15 »
I had problems last Friday, 20th Feb. I was giving a talk and demonstration of remote amateur radio operation at a radio club in NE London. I do not use Remote Rig dynamic DNS as I have fixed IPs on my station and standby route (separate ADSL provider with a radio link onto the radio site).

My problem is that the webpage from the RC-1216H that I use with an Acom 2000A linear would not load properly from about 19:30 to 21:30 UTC.  :(  :(  :(
This occured on Internet service from two different 3G providers and different DNS services and confused me. The next morning all was well.

With the RC-1212H Acom amplifier pages the browser loads a script from www.remoterig.com/1216H/acom/ This was missing and therefore I could not demonstrate the remote use of the Acom linear!

The RemoteRig site was clearly unavailable on the Internet ???  ??? !!!
I am unsure as to how to host the script myself?

73
John G4SWX

7
General discussion / Re: Software access to PTT function
« on: 2014-09-06, 16:51:01 »
 :) yes a nice work around, far better than my experiments in tunelling RS232 to the radio end.

A software virtual port solution would be a really excellent long term solution

73
John G4SWX

8
General discussion / Re: Software access to PTT function
« on: 2014-08-20, 18:12:35 »
Jan,

Yes exactly - pushing the PTT every 30 secs is not fun when running FSK441 !

As I said in my initial posting VOX is not an option for data modes as at the radio end the PTT line goes over to trigger a sequencer with the rig switching on last.

The only alternative I can see at the moment is as follows:

Control PC
Set up the WSJT (data) software with PTT via a virtual com port pointing into Com1 on RRC-1258. Enable Com 1 on RRC and Micro PC Client.

Radio end:
Connect Com 1 from the radio RRC via a optical isolator switch - I am assuming the RRC transfers RTS if it does not then this method will not work. Then put that switch in parallel with the PTT line coming out of the radio RRC.

If a RTS or DTR call in a virtual com port could be made to toggle the PTT line in the Micro PC Client it would be so much easier to run a whole pile of data modes using this client.

73
John G4SWX

9
General discussion / Software access to PTT function
« on: 2014-07-27, 11:45:43 »
Hi,

I was wondering if it might be possible to add some sort of software access to the PTT function. Possibly a virtual com port. I have been using the Micro PC Client with JT65B for EME, but have to push the PTT button for the TX sequence ;) My system does not permit the use of VOX as I have a number of systems to sequence before the rig is allowed to go onto TX. I had considered using a parallel hardware switch connected to the spare RRC 1258 com port and tunelling the command from the WSJT software but have not tested this idea.

Although I have been using the hardware RRC 1258 on my EME station for several years with 16 bit audio I was surprised that most JT65 weak signals survived the A-law compression etc. The addition of a software PTT might enable me to operate the station from even more interesting places.

73
John G4SWX

10
General discussion forum / Re: RS232 <--> LAN
« on: 2014-07-10, 16:06:07 »
I have been using 4 or 5 Wiznet WIZ110SR cards for several years.
http://www.wiznet.co.kr/Sub_Modules/en/product/Product_Detail.asp?cate1=&cate2=&cate3=&pid=1040

Available from many Eu suppliers RS etc.
These work really well with EasyRotor cards and Eterlogic VSP software for controlling rotators etc. I have used the RRC1258 RS232 tunnel but I wanted to control too many things at once.

73
John G4SWX

11
Jim,

You will find the UK licence conditions here:
http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/spectrum/amateur-radio/guidance-for-licensees/amateur-terms.pdf

The important clauses are included in subsection 10.

If you need more help or clarification please contact me via email

Good luck & 73
John G4SWX

12
I have seen similar issues with BT Business Hubs at the remote station end. A colleague had also had an identical problem with a BT Home Hub3. I have used Draytek routers with great success but have now gone to a eBay bought Cisco 1801 which on both ADSL and ADSL2+ outshines (better forwarding, QoS etc) all of the ISP branded routers.

73
John G4SWX

13
all of my PCs are running 32bit OS.
I also don't like the up front network selection as the earlier 1.6.6 worked seamlessly, with no client switching ever required, whether you were running with a WiFi or wired connection.
A BIG step backwards, probably very time consuming for less IT literate users!

John G4SWX

14
General discussion / Re: Windows 8.1 x64 problems !
« on: 2013-10-27, 15:12:31 »
I get a complete failure of 1.6.10 with both WiFi and Ethernet - it fails at the network selection stage on both my XP and Win7 laptops. The 'OK' key has no effect and only 'abort' works.

I have gone back to 1.6.6 which works fine.

IMHO release 1.6.10 sucks quite a lot...

John G4SWX

15
I have a similar problem, but I am using Windows XP.

I have been using RRCMicro 1.6.6 for about 2 months with great success.
I have loaded RRCMicro 1.6.10 and although I get the window with the choices for the network connection the 'OK' button to proceed has no effect whatever is selected in the window - only the 'Abort' key works. Therefore the client fails to start properly! I did ensure a network connection either wired or wireless before testing. A reboot of the computer has no effect.

This pop up is particularly user unfriendly compared with the earlier versions....... why is it required as many of the choices it presents, although sitting in the Windows config are irrelevant and will confuse many users?

I have now checked 1.6.10 on another PC with Windows 7 and that failed also.
Going back to RRCMicro 1.6.6 works OK.

IMHO release 1.6.10 sucks quite a lot...

73
John G4SWX

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