Ramblings by K6RJ

It's not so beautiful in the pouring rain!

In a previous post I mentioned that this week I would be on a business trip to northern California and that I was looking forward to remotely operating my SDR-1000 and my FT-450 from San Francisco.  While it is a distance of just over 400 miles, as the crow flies, previously I had only operated remotely from my office which is only about 30 miles from home.  I knew that I would have significant free time in the evenings and was looking forward to the operating time!

I was and still am really curious to see what level of success I would have from a much greater distance.  Would I have significant latency problems, how would sound quality be affected, etc?  While I am staying at one of the nicer hotels in SF, I find that they charge steeply for internet access.  Not willing to pay the nearly $60 for 1 week of access I bit the bullet and paid $15 for 1 day’s access.  I didn’t want this exercise to be a complete flop after all.

Unfortunately, the WIFI signal in my room was of such poor signal strength and speed that I had to request a refund of my $15.  So, I was nixed operating from the comfort of my room.  I still have some options to a least get in a test of remote ops from this distance.  There is free WIFI in the lobby and the signal strength should be good from there.  Of course, the lobby is noisy and busy and I won’t want to do more than a quick test there.

My other option is to connect using the free WIFI at the convention center during a break.  Of course, it will be busy and noisy there as well but I should be able to connect and make a QSO or two.  I won’t be too disappointed as long as I am able to prove my setup will work well at greater distances.

Of course, I could always find an internet cafe and pay for access there but I was hoping to find something to occupy some of my free time in the comfort of my room without it costing me and arm and a leg.  Plus it is raining like cats and dogs and would prefer to stay out of the weather, if I can.  I will update later on my successes or failures.