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Sending pristine CW over the internet during contests at remote stations is one of the greatest challenges of remote operation.  The first way I tried is via the internal system of RemoteRig.  That system also allows for direct 'on-off' keying that is generated by programs like N1MM Logger+ and it works...most of the time.

For contests like ARRL CW Sweepstakes,  'most of the time' is not good enough.  Letters get hammered when packets get 'busted', Also latencies can change dramatically over the public internet.   In order to hear what you are sending, there can be no latency from the key to your ears. so you listen to a local tone.  The result is that true QSK is not possible. 

The public internet does seem to support remote desktop options like Team Viewer and VNC, and any latency in the visual application is not a significant problem.  The latest solution I'm testing now is running N1MM on the computer at the remote site.  I added MicroHAM's MicroKeyer to the mix to send WinKey data from N1MM and the initial testing shows it works since all CW sending generated by N1MM, which is about 99% of sending in a contest, originates right at the remote station.  The only thing that runs over the internet is the F-key data that I trigger with the remote desktop software.  The iambic key is still connected through K4-to-K4 remote and is good enough for the few times I use it during the course of a contest. 

After a period of relative calm, In late 2024 I got a notice that Xfinity/Comcast internet in the vicinity of the ranch would be down for about three hours to 'improve' the system. Indeed, it went down and came back up again, but shortly afterward, I started noticing that at certain times when I would transmit, the internet would fail completely. I began to see a pattern...Whenever I pointed the antenna south, I had a problem, but any other direction, it was fine. What was baffling was that there was nothing south of the antenna on the ranch property that was in anyway connected to Comcast service. In fact, when I pointed toward where our equipment was located, things were fine.

Looking at Google Earth, the only thing south was a small community of homes. I had a feeling this was where the problem was and after doing some research, I found that DOCSIS 3.1, the current standard for 'upstream bonded channels' which is used by Comcast, occupies the frequencies between 5 and 42 MHz. Wow! That covers 40, 30, 20, 17, 12 and 10 meters, so no wonder the problem only arose when the antenna was pointed south and specifically when I was transmitting! It's obvious that they had an open shield in the coax in the neighborhood to the south.

After reporting the problem several times and getting no relief, I dumped Comcast and went with Verizon 5G wireless. I was skeptical at first since the ranch is out in the country and 5G is nowhere nearly fully deployed, even in the larger suburban neighborhoods. Much to my surprise, there was a usable signal and service has been solid ever since...and it cost a whole lot less!

In the 2020 California QSO Party, I was given the special event call K6O as part of the Northern California Contest Club's 'SEQUOIA' promotion which gave an award to any op who worked enough special event stations to spell the word 'Sequoia' with the last letter of the call.  I was one of three 'O's' which caused pileups on both phone and CW.  Things went great for about two hours, then the dropouts started, and they got worse and worse until I had to finally quit the contest.

I was so frustrated that in the following weeks I reactivated a 440 MHz, FM audio link from the remote site to home.  This consists of surplus, but very high fidelity equipment that had been used by broadcast stations for sending audio programing from remote locations such as shopping malls news scenes around town.  Originally designed to operate from 450 to 455 MHz, it was easily converted to ham band use with a new crystal and ID'er to send my callsign every 10 minutes.  It works like a charm and is unaffected by the foibles of Xfinity!