so ive been messing around with setting up remote access to my station for about 6 months now and honestly its been a mixed bag. started with just RCForb and a basic audio pipe over the internet which worked okay for SSB but latency was killing me on CW, like i'd key up and there'd be this 200ms lag that just ruins the rhythm completely.

anyway somebody on the local club net mentioned RemoteHams and i finally got around to trying the SDR remote side of things where you're basically streaming IQ data and running the DSP on the client end. that actually helped a lot with the latency feel because the demod is happening locally. but im still not totally clear on how the TX side works through their system — do you still have a conventional rig at the remote end that you're CAT controlling or is there some hybrid thing going on

also curious if anyone here has linked a remote station into like an AllStar or Echolink node at the remote site. had this half baked idea where the remote HF station could automatically link into the local repeater system when im away so club members could at least hear whats coming in on 20m or something. not sure if that makes any sense operationally or if the FCC would have opinions about it

the TX side on RemoteHams is still a conventional transceiver at the remote end, youre just doing CAT over their server infrastructure plus the audio routing. so latency for TX is still there, its just the RX experience that feels snappier with the SDR IQ stream because like you said the DSP is local. i run an IC-7300 at my remote site and the control feels pretty responsive for SSB, CW is still a bit rough if your internet isnt solid on both ends.

on the AllStar linking idea — thats actually an interesting thought but you'd need to think through the ID requirements carefully. if you're rebroadcasting HF audio through a repeater linked system that thing needs to ID properly as a repeater or auxiliary station and honestly the part 97 rules on that get a little murky when you're mixing HF receive with VHF retransmit. ive seen people do similar things at remote listening posts but usually just for club shack monitoring not linked into an actual node. might be worth asking on the RemoteHams forum specifically, there are some guys there who have done creative linking setups.

I went down this rabbit hole a couple years ago and ended up just building my own thing with a Pi 4 running SDR++ server for receive and a separate CAT/PTT control layer I cobbled together with some python scripts. way more work than just signing up for RemoteHams but I have full control and no monthly dependency. that said if I had to do it again I might just use their platform for the first year and learn how it all hangs together before reinventing the wheel.

the Echolink/AllStar crosslink idea is technically doable but I think you'd run into problems with simultaneous keying and the fact that Echolink nodes on HF are in kind of a gray area depending on how you set it up. there was a thread on eham about this maybe 2019 or so where somebody actually got a letter from their regional coordinator about a similar setup. not saying dont do it just saying document everything and make sure your trustee is on board if its a club thing.