So ive been messing around with remote station stuff for about 6 months now and i finally got a somewhat stable setup going but im wondering if im doing it the hard way. Right now im running a Raspberry Pi with some custom scripts to handle PTT over the internet, hamlib for rig control, and a cheap SDR dongal plugged into the Pi to do a spectrum display on the remote end. It kinda works but latency is annoying and the audio chain feels fragile - like every few weeks something just breaks and i have to SSH in and restart stuff.

Anyway a buddy of mine keeps pushing me toward RemoteHams and says the SDR remote feature is actually pretty solid for monitoring the band while you operate. He operates his IC-7300 remotely through it and says the integration is pretty seamless but i dunno, i hate paying for something i feel like i should be able to build myself. Has anyone actually used the RemoteHams platform long term and can compare it to a DIY approach? Specifically curious about the audio latency on SSB and whether the SDR panoramic display actually keeps up in real time or if its laggy. Also what about linking - like can you tie a RemoteHams node into something like EchoLink or Allstar or is that a whole separate thing you'd need to manage independently.

I know this is kind of a scattered question but thats where im at with it

been on RemoteHams for maybe 2 years now, using it to run my TS-590SG from work during lunch breaks mostly. The SDR panoramic thing works pretty well - its not zero latency obviously but for casual operation its totally usable. I'd say maybe half a second behind real time which sounds bad but in practice you spot something on the waterfall, click it, and by the time you key up its fine. SSB audio latency is the bigger issue honestly, you really feel it on back and forth QSOs until you get used to it.

As for linking to Allstar or Echolink, thats basically a completely separate world. RemoteHams is really built around HF remote control, its not an internet linking platform in the same sense. You could theoretically run an Allstar node on the same machine as your RemoteHams server but theyre not integrated at all, youd manage them totally independently. I tried this for about a week and gave up because the audio routing got confusing fast.

Whether its worth it vs DIY kinda depends on how much you like fixing things i guess. the platform is pretty stable, client software updates regularly, and when something breaks its usually on your end not theirs.

your SDR dongle situation - what are you using, like an RTL-SDR? because i had a similar setup and the thing that killed me was USB enumeration after a reboot, the Pi would just not see it half the time. ended up having to write a udev rule and even then it was flaky. switched to a dedicated SDRplay RSP1A and the reliability went way up, not cheap but stopped wasting my saturday mornings troubleshooting it remotely which was its own kind of miserable.

havent used RemoteHams specifically but i looked at it. the licensing structure put me off a little, feels like you're renting access to your own station which is a weird feeling. but i get why people use it, the client software looks polished compared to cobbling together SDR Console and some VOIP thing and hoping it all stays up.