Ramblings by K6RJ

As promised, here is an update on my remote operations experiment from San Francisco.  From the lobby of my hotel I was able to get free Wi-Fi and was able to connect to my Yaesu FT-450 remotely using Ham Radio Deluxe software.  I was able to make a couple of CW contacts but the noise in the lobby prevented me from doing anything more.  It turns out my SDR-1000 was not connected to it’s power supply due to an oversight of mine, so I was unable to play with that rig.

Later, I reestablished the connection using the free Wi-Fi hotspots at the Moscone Center where things were a good bit quieter.  Again, I was able to make a couple of CW QSOs with good results.  I also attempted to make a couple of SSB contacts but received bad audio reports.  Both reports seemed to indicate that I has some RF on my audio.  Hopefully, that will not be difficult to resolve.  The received audio quality was pretty good but slowly the latency time began to increase to the point where frequency changes and other control functions began to take 2-3 seconds.  This became problematic to the point where I would miss portions of exchanges.

Overall, I have to consider my experiment a success.  I was able to remotely control my rig and make some contacts on CW and Phone.  Of course, I have some issues to resolve with RF getting into the audio chain.  I am hoping that the latency issues was simply because there was too much traffic on the Wi-Fi node at the convention center.  There were a lot of people connected from a number of hot spots around the Moscone Center.  Only further tests will tell …