so ive been running a remote station for about 8 months now, started with RemoteHams because it seemed like the easiest path to get my rig accessible from the apartment while the antenna farm stays at the QTH out in the county. works fine for the most part but ive been having this nagging feeling i could do better latency wise if i just set up my own VPN and used something like flrig or maybe SDR-Console pointing at an SDR frontend out there instead.

the RemoteHams client does what it says on the tin, audio routing is decent once you mess with the buffer settings, but the SDR remote side of things has been a bit flaky for me lately — like sometimes the waterfall just stops updating and i have to disconnect and reconnect, which is annoying mid-QSO. not sure if thats a server side thing or my ISP doing something weird.

curious if anyone has actually compared running RemoteHams with their native SDR remote capability versus just setting up an RTL-SDR or an Airspy at the remote end and tunneling it back yourself. also wondering about the internet linking side — ive got an Allstar node at the remote site and sometimes i think about just tying all this together but it gets complicated fast when youre thinking about who has control of what and when.

anyway rambling a bit here but basically asking if the DIY route is worth the headache or if RemoteHams is good enough that im just chasing ghosts

ran RemoteHams for almost two years before i switched to a full DIY setup using a Raspberry Pi 4 at the remote end, rigctld talking to my IC-7300, and SDR++ with a network source plugin for the Airspy HF+ i have out there. the latency difference was immediately noticeable, probably cut it in half roughly, though a lot depends on your path to the site obviously.

the waterfall freezing thing you mentioned — yeah i saw that too and i never really figured out if it was their server infrastructure or something local. after i moved everything to my own stuff running over Wireguard that problem just went away so i sort of assume it was on their end. the tradeoff is you spend a weekend or two getting it all configured and you basically become your own IT support from then on, which isnt for everyone. but if youre comfortable with linux and dont mind digging into configs it is genuinely better in my experience.

the Allstar integration thing is a whole separate rabbit hole honestly. i tried tying my remote rig into a local repeater via Allstar for a while and it gets messy with audio levels and who has PTT priority. ended up keeping them completely separate just to keep my sanity.

i cant really comment on the DIY comparison cause ive only used RemoteHams but the SDR remote freezing thing has been happening to me too lately, maybe the last month or so. thought it was my crappy cable modem at first but sounds like maybe not. good to know im not alone at least