SmartLink Through a TP-Link Mesh Router

Rick_KJ5WO

After losing my much-beloved 20+ year old AppleAirport Extreme WiFi routers I had to change. So, after much reading, hunting and pecking I finally got port forwarding to work. For those of us who aren’t network engineers, I thought I’d share what worked for me.

Wifi Router: TP-Link Deco BE13000 Mesh system from Costco.

Flex: 6600

IOS Utility for remote operation for the radio and TP-Link’s IOS utility.

I already had it working before but if you’re starting out:

Start SmartSDR and go to Settings => Choose Radio/ Smartlink Setup.., then yes to disconnect.

Select Smartlink Setup then hit the down arrow to expand the Network Settings.

Make note of the IP address eg. 168.****.XX.XX and the port numbers.

Go ahead and setup up the TP-Link Routers with the app.

Once that’s running go to the app and at the bottom and select More => Advanced => NAT Forwarding => Port Forwarding.

Hit the “+” to add a port and give it a Service Name (the Radio or whatever).

Enter the IP address from the radio and enter the port ranges like below. Protocol is TCP & UDP. Make sure you hit SAVE. Go back to the radio and hit the Smart Link test button. It should be green.

Hope it helps!!! 73’s Rick_ KJ5WO

Mike-VA3MW

If the DECO is behind a router, just turn on Bridge mode (which turns off most the router features of the DECO). If you DECO is the main router, then uPNP should work if it does it (I can't remember). If not, then you need to do manual port forwards and configure SmartSDR for a manual setting. Make sure you set the radio to DHCP Reservation or that will break your port forwarding.

I use the DECO system with 6 nodes. Love it.