Problem Obtain IP from remoterig.com DDNS Host

[WA7HJV]

Greetings All,

Jack WA7HJV here...

I am helping a friend with his new remote rig set up. It works great inside his home network and it works great outside of his home network but only if we use his external IP as the SIP contact in the Control Box. He does not have a static IP and his external IP tends to change whenever there's a power glitch so we are trying to use the RemoteRig.com DDNS but have an issue that I did not find resolution to on the forum.

I have two other remoterig stations set up and I use the DDNS on them with no problem but my friends setup does not want to pick up an IP.  I have verified that the passwords are correct and that SIP contact in the control box matches the Own Host Name in the Radio box. When I use the DDNS status app to check it with his Own Host Name, it shows No IP.

Everything works fine if I enter his network external IP into SIP contact in the control box but as I mentioned his IP changes often so this is not a good fix.

I ran this by Mitch a couple of weeks ago. please see his reply below. I have not had any success trying these options, most likely because I did not understand what he was suggesting I should try...

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Hi Jack,

There is a bug in the RRC firmware that I have reported, but has not been fixed yet (it is hard to find). The issue is that when you use a fixed internal IP address for the radio RRC, then often it can not resolve the DNS server (not to be confused with Dynamic DNS, that is completely different).

That is why I always recommend to use DHCP even for the radio RRC and bind the address in the router instead. This problem never occurs in that case.

If you are unwilling to go the DHCP route, there is another work-around that I found: go into the RRC's IP settings and put the following into the DNS field: 8.8.8.8

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I would like to try his suggestion to "bind the address in the router" but that is beyond my current skill level to figure out.
My friend that is having the problem is using a Linksys WRT54GS  version 6.

If anyone could help with this is would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You,

Jack WA7HJV

[dj0qn]

Jack,

If you need help, just ask for it. I can use Teamviewer to make the setting in about 2 minutes.
Contact me directly for a date and time, I am home the next couple of weeks.

73,
Mitch DJ0QN / K7DX

[WA7HJV]

Great Mitch, Thank You for that offer!

I felt like I was putting you out by bugging you all the time.

What time during the day is best to call you? We are on C.S.T. here as I am in Oklahoma for awhile. I will get teamviewer installed on his pc so that I will have a access number for you.

Jack

[WA7HJV]

Ok Mitch,

I just reread your reply and I will send you an email direct.

Jack

[Jan (Microbit)]

There is a bug in the RRC firmware that I have reported, but has not been fixed yet (it is hard to find). The issue is that when you use a fixed internal IP address for the radio RRC, then often it can not resolve the DNS server

Resolve the DNS server? Do you mean access the DNS server? (As it is the DNS server which is used to resolve host names to IP addresses) 

[dj0qn]

Hi Jan,

I have reported this bug on other postings. In some cases where a user has a fixed internal
IP address, the RRC can not resolve the network's (router's) DNS address and reach the internet
in able to update the Microbit Dynamic DNS service. I found a work around to enter an external
DNS server address, such as 8.8.8.8, in order to solve this problem. It has never occurred when
someone uses DHCP on their network.

73,
Mitch DJ0QN / K7DX

[dj0qn]

I went in over Teamviewer and resolved the problem.

It is caused by the bug that I reported earlier, however in this case using the
external DNS server on fixed IP mode did not solve the problem. The only way
to get the RRC to update the dynamic DNS server was to switch it to DHCP, then
it worked just fine.

The router is a Linksys WRT54GS version 6  with firmware v1.52.0. I updated the
RRC's to the latest version, although that had no impact on that problem.

Unfortunately this router is one of the only ones I know that does not allow one
to bind the internal IP address, so I hope it keeps the internal IP address even
if power goes off, since otherwise the port forwards will no longer work.

73,
Mitch DJ0QN / K7DX

[Jan (Microbit)]

Hi Jan,

I have reported this bug on other postings. In some cases where a user has a fixed internal
IP address, the RRC can not resolve the network's (router's) DNS address and reach the internet
in able to update the Microbit Dynamic DNS service. I found a work around to enter an external
DNS server address, such as 8.8.8.8, in order to solve this problem. It has never occurred when
someone uses DHCP on their network.

73,
Mitch DJ0QN / K7DX

In my ears it sounds like the DNS server one has entered and the RRC are incompatible somehow . I get confused when you call it "resolve" as I only use that word for describing what a DNS server does when it converts(resolves) a host name to an IP address, not the connection to the DNS server itself 

[dj0qn]

Sorry about my choice of words, but I think you got it now