Remote Station Use

Did you know that remote station use is well and truly on the rise and entering the realm of normality in ham radio today. While there are some radios better suited to remote use than others, pretty much any radio that is used for digital modes can be used in a remote station.

As someone who has in the past had to work away from home a lot, using my station while I am away has held interest for me for a long time.

There are many reasons why a remote station is something many contemplate now. These include;

• to get away from man-made interference caused by Solar regulators, LED lights, NBN modems, plasma TVs
• To enable hams to pool resources to build a better station than they could do on their own.
• To locate their station in an area that has no or much less restrictions on building decent sized masts.

My first foray into remote operation was while I was still living on “tuther side” in Newcastle, but working in Melbourne from Tuesday morning to Thursday night each week. I used my trusty old IC-737 transceiver (one of the first computer controlled radio Icom built), into a multiband Windom wire antenna. I set the radio up as an Echolink node so I could do voice modes, and I used TeamViewer to control the radio. I could also use PSK31 via TeamViewer and didn’t need to worry about Echolink. Switching between SSB and PSK31 was pretty lumpy though and I couldn’t run the two modes anything like concurrently. Other issues were that I had to leave the radio on 24/7 as I had no means of switching the radio on and off remotely. The first time I went away, my wife came into the shack and noticed I’d left the radio running and switched it off for me… Logging was problematic as well. All in all it was a good attempt for its time but just a bit too hard…

The next step for me was after I saw the light and moved back to Perth. A mate of mine, Wally 6YS had an ANAN software defined radio, and it seemed to lend itself better to remote use so when one came up for sale on the club email reflector, I snapped it up. That was a step forward but I was still limited to using the radio via a PC in the shack using TeamViewer, and it was by far the least reliable setup I had, albeit much more functional. Even with the local PC doing most of the grunt, the pan adapter was so data hungry on TeamViewer, I used up my monthly data allowance in a night, and suddenly ham radio wasn’t popular in my house anymore!

Anyway, a few years later, the software defined radio thing is definitely a bug for me. Anyone that knows me also knows I picked up the Flex distributorship for Australia, the ANAN was on-sold and I was and are still a one eyed card carrying FlexRadio aficionado.

So, a few years ago, I got talking to my mate Stu VK6BG, who lives in a semi-rural area just north of Perth and we decided to pool our resources to build a cracker station that could also be used remotely. He had a 10m tower and a great shack. I relocated my Flex 6700, SPE 1K-FA amplifier, Green Heron rotator controller and a TH5 tri-band yagi. And over the course of a weekend, we built our first functioning remote station. The Green Heron rotator controller had a Wi-Fi card so I could set it up with a DynDNS address through the router and connection no longer required a PC on site. Unfortunately, I still needed the local PC to monitor the amp, however the amplifier solved that issue for me by failing half way through chasing a new DXCC country on FT8 caused by what I can only describe as “a crime of passion”!

Since then we brought another ham into the group, who also contributed equipment or infrastructure, so by the end of the first year, we had the TH5 up around 17m off the ground, a better PGXL amplifier, now 2 Flex transceivers, transverters on 2m and 70cm, a tilt-over tower capable of holding 3m2 of wind-loading, a 6 element LPA for 6m, wire antenna for 80m and a steerable dipole for 40m. Since then, we have relocated the 80m antenna and put up a 160m dipole, added a more functional antenna switching arrangement and our next project is to add filtering to each antenna to allow the two radios to both share all antennas but also work together with no interference between the two. After that, a combiner and more filters will be added so two radios can use the TH5 at the same time. With three of us contributing to it, the individual costs hasn’t been so bad. I might have snuck in a few “for demo use” products but generally we have used stuff we had lying around, or at worst one for us might sell something we didn’t want to make way for a new purchase. I might add that Stu’s wife is infinitely patient with us all. There are some rules of course but all in all, it all works well.

It’s a good station but you can do a lot with much less equipment. Another mate of mine has a station utilising an IC-7300, SteppIR vertical and wire dipoles for the DC bands and he has a bag of fun with it. Its located on a farm and has a noise floor to die for!

Along the journey, we have had quite a few challenges to build something we can use day in and day out. Its still a long way from perfect but we are having fun getting there.

Issues solved along the way have included;

• Every now and again, the radio just needs a reboot. Our first fix for that was “Stu!!!! – can you pop your head in the shack sometime and reboot the radio?”. Then on the Saturday of JOTA, while Stu was on a rail shut so further from the shack than I was (and I was 50Km away), I had to do an emergency trip to get set up for JOTA. That facilitated a relay to interrupt power to the radio remotely. That in turn brought a Node Red server into the equation, which ended up becoming the central part of the system, allowing use to control the rotator, see who is on the station (and which band), which antenna is in use, reboot radios and see what the Sunspot activity is like.
• The station is getting crowded! This facilitated putting in additional radios and some protocols on the use. We set up a messenger group so we could all talk without interrupting too much. Bringing in extra radios now also brings in interference issues, so in comes filtering and smarter antenna switching.
• Antenna switching started with a relay board on the Pi hosting Node Red, and some old coax relays I had lying around. We then put in a 4O3A 2x8 Antenna Genius that allows 2 radios to share 8 antennas. This connects to the LAN and the radios and we have it set up to select the appropriate antenna depending on the band selected on the radio. We can also control it manually via the Node Red server.
• Internet reliability is key. We are waiting on Fibre to the home now which we hope will make the radio more reliable. We are also looking at a VPN so we can reduce the latency on the system.

So…. What do you think? Not so hard is it! You can start with something quite simple. Set it up at home for a start, then look for a friendly farmer who wants to rent a bit of his wheat field, or lean on a friend or relative living in a quieter location. Build it up slowly, get a few mates to pool resources, get your club interested. Its great fun and the operating rewards can really breath some life into your relationship with ham radio.