To get a ratflector onto the Internet, people need to be able to find your IP address or a URL that points to that IP address.

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I have been using NOIP.com for that purpose.? Since most home Internet routers get a Dynamic IP address from the provider, your home’s IP address is subject to change over time.? Once you have an account set up with NOIP.com, they will give you a URL and you then download a program called DUC that periodically checks to see what your IP address is and reports it back to NOIP so they can adjust their record for your ratflector on the fly to make sure the URL always has the right path to get traffic to your location.

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I have been using them for several years.? I had made arrangements for dstarinfo.com to have it listed there.? From dstarinfo.com they set me up as , but I can also be reached as which is the address issued by NOIP.? Having this set up was one of the most frustrating things for me, because if I simply told people what my IP address was, the next time something happened, like a power outage or glitch that caused the equipment to reboot, the IP address would change to something else and no one could get in.? Also remember that your address issued by your Internet Provider and the address issued by your router to the devices in your home are two different things.? Isn’t technology wonderful?!?

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Getting the port range forwarding correct is another essential issue.? It requires you to set the ratflector up with a static IP address off your router, otherwise the same issue can occur.? The router is issuing local IP addresses on a first come first serve basis.? A reboot could cause every device in your home to get reassigned a different IP from the router.? Since port forwarding has to be given a target device to send the traffic to when something comes in on port 9000, the address of the ratflecter must be stable or else you will constantly have to go in and reassign the port forwarding information to point to the current one for the ratflector.

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The ratflector also needs the added dependency software listed in the white paper added to the pi so the program will work.?? I’ve been running my ratflector on a Raspberry Pi 3-B for several years now, so I know it can be done.

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Glen – KG5CEN

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