Verizon Wireless Drop-Outs

[w9ac]

I am seeing a high number of Verizon 4G/LTE Wireless drop-outs.  That service is at my remote site.  I use Xfinity 100/10mbps cable modem service at home when connecting.

Ping time looks good and cell site signal strength is excellent.  Each drop out is approximately the same duration of 150 msec.  It's most problematic on CW.  It may happen a few times in a minute -- or as long as perhaps a few minutes before is reoccurs.

Any tools available to isolate this problem?

Paul, W9AC

[oz1rh]

PingPlotter will measure ping times and packet drop outs over time, see www.pingplotter.com

Make sure your 4G/LTE router is set up for '4G only' so it does not drop down to 3G once in a while.

I have experienced longer ping times about once every minute when I am on WiFi. As WPA renegotiates encryption key once every minute I believe this may cause a delay. I found this using PingPlotter, but it has not been a problem for me

It is possible to make the RemoteRig boxes cope better with dropouts by adjusting 'Advanced settings'. Have a look on 'Keyer settings' also as you have problems with CW.

73, Palle, OZ1RH.

[w9ac]

Palle,

PingPlotter result below for a 10 minute sample to the remote site.  Any clues?

Paul, W9AC

[w9ac]

Two brief but severe drop outs this morning shown in the JPEG attachment.   Notice that the final path is the wireless link between the 4G cellular site and remote station.  That link contributes to most of the latency and packet loss.   It's very intermittent and likely nothing can be done on my end to fix it, nor compensate for it.  The remaining transmission path looks reasonably good.

Paul, W9AC

[oz1rh]

Hello Paul,

Your ping times to your remote site seems quite OK, mostly under 100 ms. The few spikes to 150-200 ms should not be much of a problem if you configure 'Advanced settings' and 'Keyer settings' in the RemoteRig boxes. Values for 'Keyer settings' is in the manual and if I recall correctly the delay should be similar to the ping time so try 100 ms. Here on this forum Mitch, DJ0QN has given recommendations for 'Advanced settings' for 3G. However your 4G/LTE is much better than a 3G connection, so I don't think you need to increase 'Advanced settings' that much.

I have set up a PingPlotter checking from my QTH here in Denmark to your remote site and I get quite stable 200 ms ping time during almost an hour with only 2-3 spikes to 300 ms. That is fine as crossing the pond often adds about 100 ms.

73, Palle, OZ1RH.

[w9ac]

Palle,

Many thanks for your analysis.  I'll try a 100 ms delay and see if that improves the situation.

Paul, W9AC