Wherever
there is a reliable, fast Internet Connection, wireless or static, even
in Outback VK, You may be able to remotely control Your Amateur Radio
Station.
Whether it's drones, underwater unmanned vehicles (UUV),
robotics of all kinds, robotic army tanks for example, satellites, space craft,
radar systems or you name it, Remote Control has been for a long time now and always will be an
ever increasing part of our
lives. Remote Control and Virtual Reality enables us to see and interact
from various perspectives. It's a new Frontier. An example is 'Surgical
Theatre,' which saves lives. I think that RC and VR will replace Armed
Forces Personnel from interacting within Hostile Environments. Wars will
increasingly be fought from a distance. As we extend our reach into the
Universe, remotely controlling equipment in space will become ever more
common and vital.
Thanks to the people who have developed the Internet, Remotely
Controlling and Operating Amateur Radio Stations Worldwide is a reality nowadays too. My
Remotely
Controlled Amateur Radio Station
is located on our property, out in the middle of nowhere in the South
Australian Bush, about 10 miles or so
from the nearest town and about 100 miles away from home, from where the
Radios are Remotely Controlled. The Radio Station is
Unattended, Solar Powered and turned on remotely when about to operate
and then turned off again remotely when closing down. Other wise, if
left on all the time, the battery would become depleted. A 4G
Wireless Internet Connection is used between the property and the town
and a Fibre Optic Cable Internet Connection between home and the town.
Hopefully the information here may help You to achieve Remote Control of
Your Amateur Radio Station too.
As an alternative to remotely
controlling your own AR station, you can pay money online to remotely operate Amateur Radio
stations
via the Internet which are located mostly in the USA. All the
work has been done for You. If interested, Click on this website link
RemoteHamRadio. It opens in a new window.
To see a basic remotely
controlled FT-450D station, click on this image. Having read it, if
interested, come back to this page which gives more information.
This setup like the one below, uses the 'Remote Rig' system.
These remote radio systems are operated
via a cable Internet connection at the
Control End and a wireless Internet
connection at the Radio End and use the 'RemoteRig'
configuration shown below. A desktop PC at the Control End
which uses the program 'Ham Radio Deluxe'
(HRD)
controls the Amateur Radio station which
is about 100 miles away on our
property in the South Australian Bush. The Swedish made RemoteRig system enables various configurations to be employed so that you can
operate remotely. ie. there are a variety
of ways of going about it. If
interested, have a look at their
configuration page to see which would
suit you best.
click here.
The home Qth from where the station is remotely controlled.
The Radio Station is 100 miles away, located on our
Bush property.
My system shown here uses a Wireless Internet connection
(4G, 2.4Ghz) at the Radio End on the property.
External Internet (mobile phone)
antennas are needed at our property to receive the
Internet signals from the nearest town, ten
miles away. The property
at the Radio
End is fairly isolated so the background
noise level on the radios is strength
zero. Since the Radio Station at the
property is unattended, an SMS Relay switch is used
to turn both the radio and wifi RemoteRig
on via the 12V relays when I'm
at home, 100 miles away.
In my
case, the SMS relay switch and Netgear
M1, 4G wi-fi modem are connected
to a 12 volt battery and left
turned on all the time. One of
my Radios, the IC7600, draws around 3 amps on receive, so
the SMS switch is used to turn
on both the radio and RemoteRig when
operating and then afterwards, switch both
of them
off again to prevent too much drainage from the
battery. This particular SMS switch has
4 separate switches. By using your 'smart'
mobile phone, the SMS switch is turned on
or off when you
send the appropriate SMS message to the number of the Sim card
within the SMS switch. A few seconds
later, an SMS message is then sent
back to you to let you know that
the relay switch has been turned on or
off, as the case may be. This SMS
relay switch was very expensive -
about $600 Aus. Also, with most
modern radios, within the menu settings, you
can find the 'Time Out Timer' or 'TOT'.
For remote operating, I understand that this
should be set to 3 minutes. This is
a safety feature for remote operating (eg.
in the event of losing Internet connection)
whereby the transmitter having been turned
on for 3 minutes will automatically switch
off - from transmit to receive.
If You want to
use a Wireless Internet Connection at the
Radio End as my system does, then You
will need to address the CGN Problem.
Otherwise,
You wont be able to connect
to Your Radio.
Click Here.
When using this system and HRD, You are basically sitting in front of the control panel
of Your Remote Radio from where the various parameters can be accessed and
adjusted.
Two Radios
are shown but only one is used at
a time. IC-7600 and IC-7300.
When the wifi RemoteRigs are first turned
on, they automatically connect to the modem
and soon become reachable (usually within a
minute or so) from the control end by
use of their dynamic
website addresses. If
you intend to use this system and are using only one radio, then use
the free RemoteRig's dynamic address.
Every thing here is
powered by the large lead acid, deep
cycle battery (670AH) as seen above. Power Line
Interference at my home Qth is often
strength nine but the background noise level
on the remote radios is close to strength zero,
depending on static and over the horizon radar.
This is one of the greatest
benefits of remote operating. In my case, there is
plenty of room for antennas at the
radio location too. I should think
that you could do this sort of thing
with a satellite Internet connection too and
the military would have more sophisticated
systems.
The Lead Acid Battery shown above worked
faultlessly for 12 years but I decided to replace it with 800AH of
Lithium Ion Batteries in May, 2021 as shown above. The lead acid
battery needed topping up with distilled water every month or so but
the Lithium Ion batteries need no attention paid to them. The
supplier told me that they can be depleted by 100% and bounce back
easily. Also, they hold their voltage til way down low.
On the right. The home Qth from where the solar powered Amateur
Radio station is remotely controlled via the Internet. Click for
larger image.
You may also be interested in this Remotely Controlled $100
Camera which is located near the radios, positioned behind a
window in the shed. If interested, click on the picture. The page will open in a new window.
Click
To view feedback from fellow Hams
about this Remote Control Amateur Radio system,
click here. The page opens in a new window.
As mentioned above,
an alternative to remotely
controlling your own AR station, you can pay money online to remotely operate Amateur Radio
stations
via the Internet which are located mostly in the USA. If interested, Click on this website link
RemoteHamRadio It opens in a new window.
Their Antenna systems are excellent.
Graham, VK4GRA rang me recently informing me of his simpler way of running his
radio remotely using the Raspberry Pi.
With his permission, I have inserted his email here as this method of remotely
controlling Your radio is easier to achieve than that shown above.
Rob,
Hopefully you will find a link to a you tube video by Jason KM4ACK that
describes how to use the application called "RealVnc" for remote access using
a raspberry pi computer.
Do not be concerned about the raspberry pi computer as the "RealVnc" app is a cross platform , meaning it can run of many different computers.
To get remote control for your computer ( the one that is controlling your
remote radio) requires "RealVnc server" to be running on that computer.
Follow the video step by step which includes creating a cloud account with
Real VNC and then logging your remote computer to that cloud account.
The next task is to download the "Real Vnc Viewer" ( the client Application) on
the local device, be it a laptop ,mobile phone, Tablet etc, as long as the
device has
access to the internet. Once installed use the "Real Vnc", log onto the cloud
account. There will be some user names and passwords that have to be
supplied, but once
logged on to the remote terminal, you should be on your way.
Please note:
The current free version of VNC does not support the transfer of audio to and
from the computer. For this task I use another application
called "Mumble". The setup of the Mumble system is also described by Jason
KM4ACK in another you tube video.
I have tried the Real VNC system using both fixed internet and mobile phone
internet with great success. This means that as long
as you have internet conductivity, both ends ,the system works. ( And yes
Telstra is my normal internet provider.)
If the you tube link fails, search you tube for " KM4ACK VNC".
.png)
