VPN Question

Gary

I'm late into getting my 6600M connected to smart SDR on IPhone and IPad. I connect when I'm at home on my WiFi, do I need to set up a VPN for away connections. Anny suggestions for a VPN and srtup?

Ken Hansen

You need to open 2 ports in your cable modem/router to allow SmartSDR remote operation. You shouldn't need any additional software. The two ports actually need to be 'port forwarded' to the IP address of the Flex radio.

Jim Gilliam

I find I get better throughput using a VPN than SmartLink on my system. I am not sure why. Most people use a program called Softether to create a VPN through their PC. However, I prefer to use routers that have VPN built into their firmware. In my case, I am using OpenVPN on my Asus 88U router. Their OpenVPN system works very well.


Jim, K6QE

Lawrence Gray

I could setup a VPN, but my experience so far has been good without it.  I just spent a month in the Balkans (Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia) and my iPad with a SmartLink connection worked fine, even with poor Wi-Fi speed/connections.  Signal reports from people I speak to regularly indicated that I sounded like I was at the home QTH.  VPN may well improve performance, but I always opt for simplicity.

Larry, W1IZZ

Ted VE3TRQ

Using a VPN instead of SmartLink should marginally be _worse_. There is overhead for VPN traffic, both in bits on the wire and in CPU processing. Unless you need or want security / privacy, OR want “local network type” access for remote switches, etc., you are better off using SmartLink.