Single Point of Failure Remote

Greg N8GD

The one Netgear router here that consistently fails will run quite well again from 6 months to a year, then die.  I unplug it for a day and then it's back to working OK for many months.  Heat doesn't seem to be a problem since my shack is between 70 and 75 F constantly.  Needless to say I don't put that router into service anymore even though it will work for a lengthy period of time.  Like you, my luck would be that it fails while I'm out of town!

spopiela

Howard, I'm currently remote from my 6500 at home. I have an R7000 router at home in which I have loaded VPN settings for both IOS and Windows. It is OpenVPn that runs as a server on the Router., as you know I can connect from this remote location using VPN to the 6500 at home using either my IPad with Ssdr iOS or my Windows laptop with Ssdr. Both can used at my choosing from this location. The VPN server in the router takes care of the interfacing. The R7000 is a great Router and hasn't fallen down too far on the obsolescence curve. The VPN settings are provided by Netgear and the router setup takes 5 minutes. They also have settings for Android devices. Nice.I am not proficient in IT, but the setup was as easy as it could possibly be. The nice added feature is the security to get into my NAS at home for files , securely. I kow you would like some performance data,; all I can say is that I have 50MMPS down at 10 MMPS up at home and at my remote location. SSDR connections are no problem and at high quality . I run fast Network on the IOS app. Stan N1THL

spopiela

Ken, I'm using the Netgear R7000 remotely and using the OpenVPN server on the router into my 6500 at home. The router has been set up for the OpenVPN server in the router to automatically connect to IOS and windows clients. I am currently remote now and using both my IPAD with SSDR IOS or windows laptop with SSDR. I haven't tried simultaneous connections thru the router to my network at home. Really neat operation so far, without the need to keep a computer running at home. I used your recommendations for the 2 NEO switches and relay for the remote control of power supply and radio. Still pondering on a solution for remote antenna disconnect. Stan N1THL

Bob - W7KWS -

Fourteen years of remoting has tought me that the only way to eliminate a single point of failure is to have two of everything. That includes two geographly seperated, remote controllable QTHs. In my case, Seattle & Kauai. I've never had both locations fail at the same time. When one location did fail, a telephone responder backup system with power control relays solved many of the problems including rebooting routers, modems & PCs. I ended up installing both cable & DSL ISPs at the Kauai QTH due to the unreliable nature of each at that location. A Peplink Balance dual WAN router with cellular backup as a third ISP is wonderful. But, all good things must come to an end & we sold the Kauai QTH three years ago but remote control continues here in Seattle. Here there is a Flex 6300, a TS-480, an IC-706 & an IC-7300 which are all remotable from a variety of Windows & Android tablets & phones. The 706 & 480 are also controllable from my easy chair, pickup & RV using their respective control heads seperated from the radio bodies by multiple RemoteRigs. RemoteRigs are wonderful devices. Be sure to get the Wi-Fi module for the operating end so you can easily link it to a cell phone for tethered Internet access. Remote control is the most fun I've ever had in 60-years of ham radio. 73

Dan -- KC4GO

Mostly my brain -- Over think or under think the problem.  I have been using an R7000 router for over 2 years and very happy with it. The OpenVPN works fine and I use it a lot with my Dell XPS-13...  

Kari Gustafsson SM0HRP

Hi Howard, I have been running remote for 5 years now. Like you my consumer routers have been the failure point. The thing is that they are not engineered for 24/7 operation. Since 3 years now I use 4G LTE routers from commercial vendor (Craddlepoint). What a difference. No hook up yet. I run about 400 hrs remote per year in Contests and DX-pile ups. 73s Kari SM0HRP

KY6LA_Howard

I gave back the Netgear AC-3200 and replaced it with the ASUS RT-AC3200  - based in part because people seem to have had some success with ASUS... I currently own several Netgear Routers. they all give me issues after a couple of years.. so I am going to try ASUS next...  albeit I probably should just have bit the bullet on a commercial grade CISCO Router..

Since I was changing routers I figured to have a 3 band wifi router for the balance of my network issue. 

Spent most of the day today transferring Fixed IP  and Port Forwards so that everything works as before.. lots of things still to test.. as we have 8 live cameras and host of other devices such as pool, power, Temperature and weather stations as well as several data servers... 

Tested SmartSDR for iOS - Softether VPN connected OK...

La Jolla Network is 300Mb/s x 30MB/s... Paris Network in 200Mb/s x 200Mb/s.. and Sablet (South of France) is only 10Mb/s x 3Mb/s although Orange France is supposed to be pulling fiber there soon...

No place for an antenna in Paris but lots of room for a tower in the vineyard in Sablet... Just need to be there long enough to get my act together..  which never seems to happen...and I need a higher speed data line into Sablet 

Karl:  I currently own 3 MIFI Boxes which could be used as an alternative ISP..  It would be very inexpensive $10/month to add an AT&T SIM to my existing data plan...

I am seriously considering a second independent network for the house just as backup

Kevin Va3KGS

Morning Howard

Just a thought.

Check out Mesh Networking in your area (www.aredn.org) .  Some of the nodes maybe connected to the WWW to allow you back into your equipment.  Of coarse more hardware is needed to do it this way.  I ran Mesh Networking for over a year and it worked better in the winter period as there were no leaves on the trees allowing a better WiFi connection.

73 Kevin, Va3KGS

KY6LA_Howard

MORE DREADED SINGLE POINTS OF FAILURE I am back in France again 6500 miles and several weeks away from SOCAL so it's hard to fix anything I now have multi homed Internet and added a couple of Digital Logger Web Switches so I could reboot everything in case of failure. I used the 8 port loggers as I found them to be more reliable than the WEMO that they replaced WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Well the Digital Logger Web Swtch controlling the Shack FAILED Which took down the radio and all the local control in the Shack ...I was off the air for a week. From past experience, My housekeeper would only make things worse if I asked her to fix it . Fortunately a friend from Germany was going to be staying at our house this week so I Facetimed her through disconnecting. The 8 circuits and re powering through a spare dumb power bar. Back on the air but no control. Survivable unless I get a crash needing a reboot which happens with alpha code. Not safe to upgrade to the latest Alpha as it might need a hard reboot ..but making Q's again Now I need to dream up a redundant power control system. I am thinking. Duplicate the Web Switches , use a two headed power cable and have the second switch poll the first and fail over when it does not respond

K1UO Larry

Howard..  you either have to build a bigger shack for all this or take up knitting.  Complexity can quickly become the enemy.   No need to ask how I know this

KY6LA_Howard

Larry. Lots of room. My Shack is 16'x30' and is less than 1/2 full of redundancies

Mike va3mw

Howard, good thing this is a fun project.    It sounds like dual power supplies on everything.   

K1UO Larry

I will say that the addition of the Digital Logger Switch has helped me out of a jam a time or two.  Right now my particular concern is what to purchase for surveillance monitoring the remote equipment.   There seems to be a never ending stream of "ideas" for improvements.

KY6LA_Howard

I have 8 cameras inside the house and 9 outside. So I can watch the tower raising and lowering and look at various things inside I wish I had a remote drone that I could fly r]aroumd and see more

KY6LA_Howard

Michael. Never seems to be enough redundancy. Fix one single point of failure and a new one bites me in the ****. 100% up time reliable remote is hard to do.

Mike va3mw

As all of us know, anything can and will fail.  

I wanted to use the Digital Loggers, but they were so expensive to bring into Canada, that I went another route.

I know have the Remote QTH Server running on a PI with 16 relays.  https://remoteqth.com/remoteqth-server.php,  but I might switch to his Arduino one https://remoteqth.com/arduino-web-switch.php as I think that is is more robust.

Of course, we are all 1 lightning hit away from blowing powersupplies, etc.

For me it is a 3 hour round trip to fix anything, but it has taken me 11 years of tinkering so that I can leave it alone for 5 months at a time (all winter).

Even the 6300 and the KPA500 survive -30C temps just fine.

Mike va3mw

KY6LA_Howard

My issue is that I am usually 6000+ Miles and weeks away from SOCAL so almost impossible to fix things Like you it's taken years and years of tinkering and still not 100% uptime albeit pretty close to,100% these last couple of years I still prefer remote 10000% over schlepping rigs and coax with me. As I travel around. Used to do that. Totally nuts thing to do. Plus already schlepped to 100+ countries so no thrill in that anymore. If I need to operate local there is always some local's station I can use.

Ria

pakedge
Whatever wo2x is using (linksys?)
pfsense
etc etc