Success using Maestro with the 6300 & SSDR with the 6700 simultaneously remoted from the UK to 9K2 l

Ali 9K2WA

Finally succeeded to properly connect my Maestro to my remote station in Kuwait from central London, UK. My setup consists of a Windows 7 PC Intel Core i7-3960X CPU @ 3.3 GHz, and HP-ENVY notebook also i7 @ 2.6 GHz, both with enough SSD storage. I am able to remotely switch and control 3 radios, 3 Amps, 2 rotors and use any of 8 bands from 6-80 meters. I received my Maestro just in time before travelling to the UK, tested the VPN connection and all was perfect. Unfortunately, I faced horrific latency problems that I have never experienced before since I started remoting my Flex radios almost 2 years ago, and had to put the Maestro aside. It turned out that connecting the HP-ENVY to the internet using the WiFI connection was causing all the problems despite the fact that I have a Gigabit Fiber here in the UK, and a 10 M bits fiber at home. The latency ranged from 95 ms to over 4000 ms making it difficult to sustain good reception, however on the transmit side all is OK. The first thing I did was to connect the notebook via a direct LAN cable and switch the SoftEther VPN Bridge connection offline and try connecting it the way I have always been doing with the SoftEther VPN client running on the HP-ENVY notebook operating SSDR with the Flex-6700, the results were more than excellent with a latency ranging from 95 to a maximum of 275 ms. I started thinking why not try a USB 3.0 to Ethernet adapter as the internet connection and disable the notebook WiFi, on the next day I got me an GigabitLan USB 3 adaptor from the nearest Maplin store and plugged it to one of the notebook USB ports and plugged the USB adapter Ethernet port to the internet switch and hocked up the Maestro to the built in notebook Ethernet card which was configured already in the notebook VPN Bridge from before, all worked like a charm. Now I have both radios online, the Maestro connected to the 6300 and the notebook SSDR to the 6700 operating simultaneously without any problems and the latency again was between 95-275 ms with both Flex radios, I installed V 1.8 on both radios, notebook and the Maestro, and all working fine with the new version. Credits for the setup of the above was learned from the relevant VPN knowledge on this community posts, mainly from K6TU, K6OZY video part 3 and also from SoftEther.org. I just wished that FRS would have added L2TP VPN connectivity in the Maestro, the same way done in iPhone/iPad and the Android as an intermediate step until SSDR 2.0 is released, I know many remote users would appreciate this function, also it would be nice to see the Date & Time displayed somewhere on the Maestro in the next release.

EA4GLI

Congrats!!!

KY6LA_Howard

Ali

Great solution!!

Built in VPN is coming - not sure when but I know its on the list.

I have run my Maestro remote in the USA OK but did not take it with me to France last month.

Hope to bring it with me when I return to France in September

Maybe we could do a London-> Kuwait-> California-> France QSO

Ali 9K2WA

Thanks Salvador.

Ali 9K2WA

Thanks Howard, It will be my pleasure, just hope next time when you are in France we have good conditions, the west coast is difficult during summer time, but I will let you know when there is an opening. For your information, I did not mention that I did get a fast internet WiFi modem form one of the best recommended mobile ISP service providers here when I first came to the UK and was staying at the hotel when I gave it my first try , I though that the hotel internet was not good enough but the modem proved that the problem was some where else, also when I rented an apartment with a Gigabit internet speed and used the WiFi connection at the apartment, I was really disappointed not being able to use my Maestro, I am now a very happy camper with this setup, I don't know if any one else had an issue like this. Maybe some one could investigate the effect of latency on different situations. Last year I operated remote with a latency over 450 ms from VK and ZL lands using VPN and running SSDR but I had no problems, I always had a poor connection however with one red bar shown on the SSDR network status indicator! the same status I am getting with my present fast internet speed, I would like some one to shed some lights on the status bar meter and tell us what is the speed & latency for each bar on the internet status indicator.

Rob G6EIH

Similar setup here, using Surface 3 with Soft Ether bridged, USB3 to GB LAN, LAN to Maestro wired works perfectly.

For my office I have an iMac running VM Ware and Windows 10, Soft Ether bridged, the same USB3 to GB LAN directly connected to a Maestro all systems running the latest software and no issues.

Credit to K6TU and K6OZY for the SoftEther.org setup guides.

saif al

very nice Ali 

best regards

Saif A71AM

Norm - W7CK

I'm doing something similar here as well.  Dell Laptop Soft Ether bridged to Maestro that is directly connected to the laptop.  non-bridged connection for the laptop.  Both laptop and Maestro have VPN back to home network.  For the internet connection I use any one of the three options depending on the situation and environment - USB3 to GB LAN, wireless from the laptop to a router, or tethered through my phone.  Any of the 3 connections work fairly well.

I have to admit, it is a PITA compared to having full control of my station via RemoteHams RCFORB.  That single application lets me control everything at my station and I don't have to **** around with VPN and kludging all the external control software and hardware.   It all works from my laptop or my Phone.   I love it because I can get on the air and use any band HF, VHF or UHF, full control of my amp, tuner and rotor from my darn phone and most of the time, that's all I want to be dragging around with me when I'm traveling.  Although the VPN method has been fun setting up and getting it to work.

Ali 9K2WA

I agree, It has been a lot of fun ever since I got my first Flex-6700 back in September 2013, I used RemoteHams RCFORB at leaset 10 months ago, https://community.flexradio.com/flexr...

I would predict in the near future the same functionalities will be implemented by some one.

I have also posted an idea 10 months ago to have access rights profiles when SSDR v 2.0 is out to allow for other hams to get access to the Flex-6xxx in a similar way as implemented by RemoteHams.

Kari Gustafsson SM0HRP

Hi, thanks for all great hints. From my PC I have succeeded over 4G to VPN to a raspberry pi where the 6300 is. Using Softether and K6OZYs scheme. I use the PCs wifi to connect over 4G to the raspberry. Running SDR on PC to connect works fine.
But I cannot understand how to connect a Maestro, which is connected to ethernet card on the PC,  to the PC  and establishing connection with the 6300.  The Maestro does not recognise the 6300 over its bridged VPN connection (same as when running SDR to connect to 6300).
Any clues where to check?
Thanking in advance,
Kari  

Kari Gustafsson SM0HRP

Now solved. I had not made a bridge for the Maestro. But using wifi gives terrible latency. Had to use a USB 3 to LAN adapter.