so ive been running a remote station for about two years now using a pretty cobbled together setup — basically a raspberry pi running some custom scripts, a tigertronics interface, and teamviewer to get into the shack PC. it works but its kind of a mess honestly and every time something breaks i have to drive 40 minutes to the site to figure out what happened

been looking at RemoteHams as an alternative, specifically because of the SDR remote functionality they added. the idea of being able to tune around with a panadapter view from wherever i am is really appealing. my current setup i basically have to know exactly what frequency i want before i connect, which is kind of annoying when youre just trying to find some activity on 40m

the internet linking piece is what im less clear on — does anyone know how well that integrates with like a hotspot situation or are we talking full broadband needed at the site? the site i use has a pretty decent cellular connection but not like fiber or anything. curious if anyone has done a side by side comparison or just has opinions on whether the RemoteHams platform is worth the subscription vs DIY

ran a DIY setup for years before switching to RemoteHams and honestly the main thing i noticed right away was the audio latency improvement. my homebrew thing was using mumble and it was fine but there was always this slight delay that messed with my timing on CW. the RemoteHams client handles that better in my experience, not perfect but better.

the SDR remote part is genuinely useful, being able to see a chunk of spectrum before you commit to a frequency is a big deal when youre trying to work DX remotely and you dont know if a pile up already formed. my site is on a 4G LTE connection, probably 15-20 mbps down and maybe 5 up, and it handles everything fine including the SDR waterfall. id say you need at least solid 5 mbps upload at the site for it to feel snappy. below that and the waterfall gets sluggish first before the audio starts suffering.

the subscription cost bugged me at first but i've stopped thinking about it. the time i save not driving out to reset stuff manually is worth way more than what they charge.

the internet linking question depends alot on what you mean by linking. if youre talking about tying the remote into like an echolink or IRLP node at the same site thats a whole separate can of worms and i wouldnt mix those two things on the same connection without some QoS rules or youll have audio stepping on itself at the worst moments

cellular is usually fine for basic remote ops but i've had issues where the latency spikes during peak hours and on CW it becomes basically unworkable for anything faster than maybe 15 wpm. SSB you probably wont notice it as much. just something to keep in mind if youre planning on doing any digital or CW work remotely over a cell connection