smartsdr ios problems with VPN and audio

Mark G Thomas

PS: I strongly wish that SmartSDR for Windows (and Maestro) had the fixed IP option that this iPhone/iPad application has already. This BASIC FEATURE makes operation on diverse subnets possible. This would save us from jumping through hoops fiddling with non-standard broadcast-passing VPN solutions. Yes, I know internal VPN support is likely coming with 2.x, but why not add this simple IP setting for those of us who can benefit from it?

Howard Koenig

I have constant vpn access on my windows tablet.
it works intermittently on my iphone.
and not at all on the ipad....   both ios devices have the same settings.

Howard Koenig

Not really Mike.. He seems to have Flex radio in a partnership (as stated on this official website. This reflects on Flex radio directly.

Mike va3mw

I guess--and I understand what you mean.  I forgot that I know the history of the product and that it is a single ham who wrote it as I was asked to beta test some time back (I'm not btw, I didn't have time).

Still, it is ham radio and not there are a large number of garage industries in ham radio.  I just bought it and it works fine on my remote base.  And, I only have a 1mb/s upload at the RF end.  

If you are having connectivity issues, you may have to look outside the product to resolve.  We can't expect vendors to be responsible for products external to their operations.  If we did, then a software developer would say my product only works with Joe's routers, Fred's switches on so and so's ISP.  

This makes it tough on everyone as there is no standard in this world, only guidelines.

73, Mike 

Howard Koenig

I guess... well... odds are I may buy it and give it a try.. I can always get a refund if I can't get it to work properly..
Im gonna put this stuff away and go enjoy the pool!

73

Tim VE6SH

Thanks for all the tips and the offers of help (Marcus also emailed me). Let me work with it today and see how far I get.

Tim VE6SH

KY6LA_Howard

I think we are flying thru London on Dec 1st.. if you can get down to London I can give u a live demo...

Or you can always meet me in Paris.... I am there most of September and December

Tim VE6SH

Fixed! I followed Mark's suggestion and turned on "fixed IP" and "scan instead of discovery" and it immediately found the Flex. Thank you all for your assistance. Now I have a ready excuse to update my somewhat aging iPad Air (first gen)!

Tim VE6SH

Scott N8UMW

I've noticed that some VPN software will not allow certain types of devices to connect to the internet for security reasons. Some software has the option of allowing these devices access at a lower security setting and some don't. I have VPN as part of my Usenet subscription as well as express VPN as a stand alone service. Both of those allow the flex to be seen on the network. Freedom VPN that i tried several months back did not have that option at that time. I used to use team viewer and Skype with success. Currently, I can get audio both ways using just parallels access by itself and so i quit using the other two. This works on my galaxy note 3, iPad 2 mini, and my iPhone 6s plus. I have not tried this with VPN setup on the router. Just on all of my individual computers and devices. Please note that when using a VPN service, you absolutely will get slower internet speeds add a result of hopping through several different servers around the world. Choose one that is closest to you and/or has the lowest latency with the greatest throughput. Just my two cents. Cheers.

Jay -- N0FB

I have put my SoftEther server in the DMZ.  The results are same whether in the DMZ or just Port Forwarding engaged for L2TP.   The waterfall on all clients (SmartSDR for Windows, IOS, Maestro, and DogparkSDR) produce the banding as seen below in the IOS screenshot.

Phil M0VSE

The VPN that people are using is a point-to-point VPN back to their home network, not a 3rd party VPN service (the two things are completely different). Most people are using SoftEther which can run on many devices, I am using a Raspberry Pi running SoftEther as my VPN server and this works perfectly.

k0eoo

So far TX audio quality using my iPhone 6S+ w/earbud/mic on my LAN has been excellent. on both SSB and AM.... RX audio is also excellent...

Didn't realize it would be a challenge to get a VPN to work well with iPhone/iPad to radio...  I guess there's always something, LOL....

Mike va3mw

I just tested mine on the train between Toronto and Monteal. Listening to 40m on the train poor wifi was acceptable. Very cool Mike va3mw

KY6LA_Howard

I tested the Alpha Version during several days in early June over 3G/4G sitting in the basement ladies shoe department in Galeries Lafayette in Paris.. I made over 100 remote Q's. using my iPhone and a MIFI Box on Orange 4G/3G.  I used the Apple Ear Buds albeit at the time we had issues with the loudness of the mike that was corrected in the production release. 

I guarantee I would have gone insane long ago if I could not remote from shoe stores waiting for the XYL to try on every pair of shoes in the store...

I highly recommend this to Husbands who are dragged along by XYL on shopping trips...It's a life saver...

...and there is no possible correct answer to the question

 "Do these shoes make my feet look ****"

KY6LA_Howard

Neat Features:

There are a couple of Neat Extra Features that Marcus has added to the App ($4.99 each)

1. Band Plan  this is a graphic on screen band plan to make sure you do not transmit out of band

2. DX-Cluster  - I really love having spots show up on the display...

this is a must have if you plan to work DX from your iPhone or iPad.. it just makes life so easy to see the DX in front of you or by looking on the Spots lists.and clicking on a spot brings you to the correct frequency..

I just worked Vannutu yesterday while babysitting a grandkid... saw him on my iPhone display and BAM he was in the log... Now if he would only LOTW

Howard Koenig

After researching the web, it appears that IOS 9 has an issue with VPN and a lot of people are having connectivity problems. It has been fixed with IOS 10.

Perhaps this is why I am having difficulties.

I just upgraded and am running IOS 10 on my IPHONE which I now have VPN working properly...   hmmmm the plot thickens.

Mike va3mw

Interesting. I'm running 9.3.2 connecting to Softether via L2TP and no issues at all. I have an upgrade to 9.3.3 waiting. Where are you finding IOS 10 as it isn't available for us mortals for another month?

Mike

K6OZY

I'm running 9.3.3 without issues. His device may have had some other issue. Erase would be drastic where iOS 10 may not have fixed it, but the OS install purged the issue. iOS 10 beta is available if you want to pay the $100 Dev fee.

KY6LA_Howard

interestink?

Not sure what the difference is but I am iOS 9.3.3 and no issues...

Wonder what changed and good to hear that you finally got the VPN working now how about SSDRiOS?

Bob N7ZO

I am running iOS 9.3.3 here on an iPhone 6 and an iPad Air 2 and have no problems using VPN with the new SSDR-iOS software.  The server at home is running SoftEther with LT2P enabled and with UDP ports 500 and 4500 enabled on the router.  (Also ESP and AH protocols are enabled on an ActionTec FIOS router).  The VPN settings on the iOS devices are the built-in L2TP settings.

SSDR-iOS is performing beautifully on both the local LAN and Verizon LTE (4G).

73, Bob, N7ZO

Bob N7ZO

I just upgraded to iOS 9.3.4.  SSDR-iOS performance is good, same as noted above.

Ken - NM9P

I am running it effectively on both iPad Air and iPhone 6 using PPTP through my ASUS RT-AC66U Router and its built-in VPN app.  

I am also using SmartSDR for Windows at my office using the OpenVPN server on the router and a OpenVPN Client on my office computer.  

My main performance limitation is the lousy Uplink speed at the house (about 760 Kbps) which requires me to throttle my display FPS back to about 6 (I usually use 15 in the shack) and turn the waterfall down to between 4 and 9, depending upon what day it is and who else is using the internet at home...

If I could upgrade to 1.5 Mbps upload, I would have no gripes.

It did take me a while to program around the ATT Uverse Motorola router to get to do Passthrough/Bridging to my ASUS router.  Once I solved that, it has been pretty smooth sailing - even using the iPhone and SSDR-ios in the car with the car's built-in handsfree.  It was fun **** HF "remote mobile" for three hours on the way back from Dayton!  The sound from my car's stereo speakers was awesome!

Ken - NM9P

Jay,  The Waterfall and DAX are the two biggest users of bandwidth on the Flex.  I have seen the data rate go from about 300 kbps up to over 4 Mbps just by moving the waterfall from zero to full and starting a couple of streaming DAX audio channels.

When I run remote via my VPN, I begin by turning DAX off(in the remote computer/ios SDR client menu) and I slow the waterfall down to Zero.  If I still need to economize on bandwidth, I slow the Display FPS setting down below 15 -- sometimes I have had to go as low as 5 before my audio quit jumping about.
Once my connection stabilizes, I can then begin increasing FPS or Waterfall as tolerated by my home's slow "highspeed" connection.

You might begin troubleshooting there.  You may be getting banding because of low-bandwidth-induced dropouts.  Your remote performance is gong to be limited by the home stations UPLOAD speed, which in many (if not most) US carriers is severely limited vs their download speed.  (I am envious of people like Howard-KY6LA in San Diego, and my brother, Jim, in the New Albany/Louisville area who both have 300 Mbps UP and Down!)  Here I sit with 3 Mbps Down and 765 Kbps Up....boo hiss!)

Beyond that, I won't be very helpful with Softethernet and L2TP.  I haven't done much with that since I got my ASUS router running.

Ken - NM9P

Michael, how did you get such a nice screenshot from you iPad?  I haven't learned how to do that, yet.

Phil M0VSE

Press the power button and the home button simultaneously and it takes a screenshot. IOS10 will also include the ability to take "video screenshots" which will be good!

Ken - NM9P

Great!  Thanks.

K6OZY

I wanted to post a follow up on this thread.   I have a local friend who had this exact issue.   We could connect just fine with his PC, my iPad, etc, but his iPad just wouldn't connect.  This is the exact same issue Howard had.   We fixed it by first deleting the VPN entries, then going to "General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings".

The device rebooted, reconnected it to the Wifi, setup the VPN again, and worked fine.  I hope this helps someone else who may have this issue.

Jay -- N0FB

Ken...I'll probably make you jealous too then.  I've got Google Fiber and have 1GB up and down.   You wouldn't think so by the troubles I'm seeing.  I've got to be doing something wrong.  In house I'm getting WiFi of about 200-300 MBPS.  When wired it is very close to the 1GBPS according to Ookla.   With all of that being said, I should have plenty of bandwidth to handle the requirements of SmartSDR.  Again...I've got to be doing something wrong.

Howard Koenig

Thank you so much K6OZY..

That did it.. All working now.

Wow several days of frustration and that's all it took...   IOS smartsdr is running and working well...   will see how it does from 35,000 feet tomorrow on the way to New York

73 and good night everyone.

KY6LA_Howard

Been there done that flying to Dayton Hamvention in May on Southwest. Suggest you use a Bluetooth headset or Apple ear buds to cut down on background noise. I really helps **** boredom of flying.