26th December, 2018. I was very pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Matt, VK5HZ, without whose help this remote system would not be working, because of the CGN problem. It was sent from the Australian Davis Research station in Antartica where Matt is working. He is about to use the RemoteRig system down there. With Matt's permission, his email is reprinted below. As I type this, the expected maximum temperature here in Adelaide Australia today, is supposed to be 41 degrees Celsius, that's well over 100 F. I can only imagine what the weather is like where Matt is located.

Hi Rob, The code that needs to be put on the account is GPTEXB3 - you will probably experience a lot of run around from Telstra people who aren't aware of what it all means, and as I said I have heard that they will only do this on the business plans now - I'm not sure what's required to sign up to one of those. Cheers, Matt.

Hi Rob, I just read on your website that you have your RemoteRig up and running again, fantastic! Glad to hear that writing to Telstra to plead your case helped.

I'm in Antarctica working for the next year and purchased a set of RemoteRig boxes to use locally on the station LAN (no NAT issues thankfully..). The two huts where the transceivers and antennas are located are a bit of a walk from the main station so I bought the boxes to allow me to get on air a bit easier, particularly in the winter. The main antennas we have are similar to your terminated vee, being terminated triangles. Unfortunately they're not a very flat VSWR and most of the ham bands are around 2-3:1 or even more so I'll need to get a tuner going to get best performance out of them. I have an SPE amplifier coming down at the end of January that has a tuner good for up to 3:1 so hopefully this works well. During summer the antennas are used for aviation operations, but in the winter I'll be able to use them more regularly.

I have the call VK0HZ for down here, hopefully catch you on air sometime in 2019. I have a blog that I'm slowly putting up a few posts on, vkzero.com if you want to check it out.

All the best,

Matt VK0HZ / VK5HZ Davis Station, Antarctica

3rd March, 2019. Very pleased to receive an email from 'Tony', VK1VIC, who is setting up a remote system using the Remote Rig method as well. He has a farm that he is going to rent out which also runs on solar power. He intends to move into the nearby town but remotely control his radio station on the farm where he has located a very nice antenna system.

Hi Rob, Many thanks for your reply mate.

I currently have the 706Mk2 remoted from the woolshed across WIFI back to the main house.Through summer is was nice to sit in the kitchen and not in a bloody hot tin shed. HIhihi.Saved me from walking around in the dark when the snakes are out and about.

Will let you know how I go with the CGN. I have 3 commerical 3G routers that I plan to use. Dual external antenna sockets.

Regards

Tony V blog: https://vk1vic.wordpress.com VK1VIC / VK2VIC

28th June, 2019. Tony has just send this email to me regarding his latest efforts which I am very pleased to hear have been successful...

Hi Rob, Well it has been a few weeks since we last spoke about the remote rig control for a remote HF station that beats the Carrier grade NAT issue due to them not wanting to give me a true public ip address. I can advise that my solution by having a 'router in the cloud' has worked. A router in the cloud is what is called 'virtual' and is provided by a Cloud Service Provider. It might take me some time to actually document it but here is the gist of it. I can connect the Icom 706Mk2 radio body via the remote rig over a 3G/4G router that then establishes an outbound connection to a 'router in the cloud'. (The router in the cloud is one that is free for a year. After a year it costs something like 0.06 cents an hour when it is running). Then with the ICOM 706Mk2 remote head via the remote rig over 3G/4G establishes an outbound connection to the same 'router in the cloud'. Once both ends connect to the 'router in the cloud' they can each 'see each other' and establish a connection. There is some configuration on the 'router in the cloud' but isn't too difficult to set up. It is also a fully IPSEC encrypted path.

Maybe I should document it and submit it to the WIA AR Magazine? Well at least I will post it on my blog site.

Regards, Tony V
VK1VIC / VK2VIC email: vk1vic@yahoo.com

VK1VIC Website

25th March, 2019. Great to hear from Marcus, AK7MG. He has developed a different way to go about remotely controlling his radios. It's too technical for me, but may suit you. Have a look at Marcus's website which is listed below in his email to me.

Hello Rob, Hope you are doing well. I have viewed your remote station setup videos and find it very impressive. I also have been interested in remoting radios for some time and ended up creating a new project that allows me to control my IC-7300 with a Raspberry Pi and mobile phone / tablet. Anyhow, I thought I’d drop you a line as you or your friends might find it interesting.

Please see: www.remotetx.net

The approach does require continuous cloud resources so there is a small ongoing cost to keep it all running, but it makes the networking, audio and security turnkey and very easy to setup. Also, it would probably address the CGN problem, though I haven’t tested it on a system like that. I have successfully tested it through a t-mobile cell network with Apple devices that quit allowing native ipv4 addresses and forced use of ipv6 when on cellular. The system uses about 80kbps bandwidth both ways so generally works fine on broadband cellular networks. Because the 7300 has both the USB and the ‘Remote’ CI-V port, you could actually use USB to control the radio with one system and a combination of MIC/AF and the ‘Remote’ port to control it with a second system. Remotely, then you could choose which system to use; remote-rig or mobile/tablet/cellular. Cheers and 73, Marcus, AK7MG.