US Oregon

[whole rapids]

15 minutes is "online"

[sharp pilot]

Its the biggest flare in a long time. but probably wont be geo-affective, due to being rotated out of view of earth

[dusky niche]

I guess I have been mis-interpreting the notice. It's just saying that it is connected to my node and it has been communicating with (online with?) 30 nodes in the last 15mins? Why does the larger number fluctuate? Sorry, I'm not sure why this seems rather confusing to me...😕

[turbid sequoia]

There's a colon after Connected: There are 26 of 100 online. So 26 seen it the last 15 minutes. 100 in your db. Pretty sure you're both saying the same thing.

[dusky niche]

Ok, so it is the DB amount that is fluctuating so much. Usually it is running about 100-130. Today it was 170+ for some time.

[timber raven]

Any update on this?

[sharp pilot]

Dont think anything is going to come of it.

[solar garnet]

Wiped out hf for a few hours yesterday but 915mhz is uhf and likely won’t be affected by a solar flare. If it is affected we’ll all be having gigantic other issues

[sharp pilot]

There is a new spot on the eastern limb that looks promising

[idle trail]

agreed

we would probably be cooked

[solar garnet]

I’ll be at the Oregon Zoo Sunday sporting a Tbeam I’m my pocket

[timber raven]

I’ll be there Saturday, with my Heltec in my pocket!

[heavy hornet]

Does anyone here own Flying Spaghetti Monster?

[lyric zephyr]

My HV-HoodBase node might be showing up, bouncing off YCM2.

[sharp pilot]

I see it on YCM1

I was wondering whos that was. is that your new router?

[lyric zephyr]

T-beam base node with the yagi pointed at YCM2.

[sharp pilot]

cool

[lyric zephyr]

I'll try sending you a message from my other node HV-ProtoFlex. 2 hops.

[sharp pilot]

ok

[sharp pilot]

I got the 2 hop test msg

[lyric zephyr]

Got your reply "Received"

[sharp pilot]

nice

[solar garnet]

One of my repeaters is finally going up tomorrow. Approximately 920’ asl near Victor Point Elementary School which is approximately 10 miles east of Salem. Last time I was up there I got into SW Portland with a tbeam and a blade antenna. With the RAK and 6dbi antenna we should be good.

[sharp pilot]

Awesome

[exotic horizon]

Hey guys, any of you guys from Eugene?

[solar garnet]

My repeater is active. Seeing lots of nodes

[turbid sequoia]

What's your node's name?

[turbid sequoia]

Are there two NT3S's or are you changing up the long name?

[solar garnet]

Changing name

[turbid sequoia]

looks like I had you an hour ago but no contact now

[idle trail]

so many antennas

[sharp pilot]

I can see it from McMinnville

[turbid sequoia]

That's a serious install!

[solar garnet]

It looks to cover a good area but not my qth 😭

More repeaters!

[sonic plover]

Heading up into the Gifford-Pinchot today, keep an eye out for test messages!

[timber raven]

Picked up an A1 Mini and having a blast. This is the H1 case designed by @willow shore with stock antenna sheath printed in Overture “Glow-in-dark” Green!

[timber raven]

@willow shore loving this enclosure design!

[lyric zephyr]

Repeater is providing great coverage over Salem, east side of I-5 for sure. Typically when I go mobile, most nodes will go stale when I leave home (node base). This morning, drove around usual places and many nodes stayed current, and even picked up new ones. Hops and distance indicate they're going through your repeater.

[solar garnet]

Nice

Thanks for the feedback

[solar garnet]

Tonight at 8::30 I’m going to be net control for the Meshtastic net on the 145.290 repeater http://wa7abu.com/

I’ll be monitoring this channel for questions during the net from stations that may want to participate but aren’t licensed or can’t access the repeater

[willow shore]

So good! I got some glow in the dark filament to experiment with recently too 🌟

[timber raven]

Ya buddy! Any new cases in the works?

[sharp pilot]

I am in the hills on YCM5 if anyone wants to see if they can DM it

[dusky niche]

I tried, but had little hope... I did get your ping and replied!

[wild whale]

Anyone here in the Bend area?

[sharp pilot]

I just sent you a DM

it shows recieved

[dusky niche]

Got it and replied. Like usual, my nodes hear all but speak little.😕

[sharp pilot]

yeah, never got a reply

[dusky niche]

Tried again on L/F just for fun...

[sharp pilot]

Got you on L/F

[dusky niche]

Weird. Should be the same thing, right?

[sharp pilot]

should be...

but maybe a DM tries to go direct to the node as apposed to L/F taking some hops. not sure exactly how meshtastic thinks

[solar garnet]

Meshtastic net starting on 145.290 repeater in 15 minutes.

http://wa7abu.com/

[turbid sequoia]

I'll be joining, a bit late

[turbid sequoia]

monitoring now

I have a correction, lol

I also have my mouthful. just getting to dinner 😁

7 hops max

limited by firmware

all devices on the same modem settings and frequency will repeat

BUT, if you change your primary channel name, the firmware will assign a new frequency

You can switch it back to the default after setting your primary channel

~10x less power

[idle trail]

listening in on my sdr :)

[turbid sequoia]

When we talk about wisblocks we mostly talk about the nRF52 chip. It's on the "meshtastic starter kit"

No Wifi on the starter kit, but there is an ethernet module

and BT is standard

LoRa is VERY low bandwidth

There are some really great notes about the different chips/boards on https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/radio/device/

[idle trail]

is the roger beep the old samsung pop sound lol?

[turbid sequoia]

Awesome net @solar garnet !

Thanks for doing these.

[solar garnet]

I’m trying to get my audio into my computer so that we can combine a live discord stream and the rf

[turbid sequoia]

The funny thing is I don't think I've turned on my ham radio since I started working with Meshtastic, so thank you for getting me to fire it back up!

[solar garnet]

Thanks for your wealth of knowledge

[turbid sequoia]

8:30 usually works for me if the kids cooperate. Tonight they were not cooperating.

[turbid sequoia]

I was moslty unemployed last year so I read every single word of the docs.

And then started contributing to them.

[solar garnet]

I read the bare minimum until I realize I needed to read more 😂

[turbid sequoia]

There is an amazing amount of information in there. Anything I didn't understand, I just asked the devs here about it. Those are some really smart people.

(and helpful too)

But really, thank YOU for setting up and leading the nets. Getting the word out about the project really helps move it forward.

[solar garnet]

I believe in the project. I can’t do the technical stuff so I do what I can.

Y’all just keep making it better and better

[daring steeple]

I had my node Lankveil, a RAK 19007, factory reset itself after running about a month. It was at 92% power. I think it might have just reset itself again this morning. I was just about to deploy it in a place I can't get to easily. Is this a known problem or is it failing?

[turbid sequoia]

It's something that pops up from time to time. Devs are looking into it but it's a tough one to pin down. There's a theory it has to do with bluetooth negotiation. Seems to be more common with Android.

It's happened to me several times. I think it happens when my phone is connected but I'm at the edge of BT range.

If that's the case, disconnecting before leaving the area would be wise.

[daring steeple]

OK, my bluetooth is behaving strange. Won't stop trying to connect out of app after it resets. I will probably end up running a mode with bluetooth disabled anyway. Thanks for the help

[turbid sequoia]

Leave BT on, there seems to be another set of issues when BT is disabled.

[daring steeple]

OK lol. It will probably be in repeater mode. It's going up on a hill on SanJuan island at my brothers. I should be able to hit Vancouver Island and Ooak Harbor if I'm lucky. I may need yagi

[lusty ledge]

If you need help testing, lots of us in the Washington and Vancouver/ Victoria connect channel. We have a few high traffic routers there. No yagi needed

[daring steeple]

Cool. I might be up there in a couple weeks. He has a great spot for a node. About 300 foot above the water with a view of south Victoria, the Olympics and the Mt. Vernon area. I can't wait to give it a try.

[lyric zephyr]

Silly idea! 💡 I propose every Wednesday, in the Public Channel (LongFast) report number of nodes you have on your list for a given node.

If you want to be fancy, report <Active#> out of <Total#>.

[solar garnet]

@turbid sequoia https://youtu.be/VWt8iSoHONQ?si=Q71nEq6IMzC0PRCD

Your famous

[solar garnet]

My repeater is now visible in node list

[dusky niche]

My JDMO node saw it about 40 min. ago.👍

So many new names in my DB!🎉

[lyric zephyr]

And yet, so few willing to say anything in the Primary Channel. I saw yours the other day.

[idle trail]

longfast is silent

[solar garnet]

Ohhhhh traffic!

[sharp pilot]

doing some decent traffic

[solar garnet]

Thats awesome. I haven’t seen it on my node list but Salem is getting busier so hopefully it’ll be a reliable connection north

[sharp pilot]

@whole rapids any update on OTA updates for ESP32 (Heltec) nodes?
I want to put one in a location that is not easy to get to and it would be nice to be able to update it via BT, like I can do with my RAK nodes

[solar garnet]

I think I’ll just be buying wisblocks for everything now

[lusty ledge]

https://tenor.com/view/mando-way-mandalorian-star-wars-this-is-the-way-gif-18467372

[sharp pilot]

yeah, I am thinking the same way for my routers and remote nodes

[solar garnet]

I’m thinking about it for everything. But the reality is that I could buy 2-3 other radios for the same price. Reliability or more radios on the mesh?

[sharp pilot]

the heltecs are cheap and easy

$40 for a basic RAK shipped

if only someone would fugure out the OTA updates for Heltecs, I would be happy

[whole rapids]

Nothing, not sure it has worked at all for a S3 board yet

[sharp pilot]

Thanks, will stick to the RAK for my remote Nodes

[solar garnet]

Another high altitude repeater is up. It’s in the Santiam Canyon

Not mine but it’s looking promising

[idle trail]

saw it

63 miles away

[solar garnet]

Looking for a good location for another repeater with a prominent view of the entirety of Salem. Let me know if you know of any good places

[idle trail]

is this you?

because it says your a client not router client

[solar garnet]

Nope

Not me

[idle trail]

oh..

[sharp pilot]

Just picked up 2 more RAKs from Rockland 😎

[hollow igloo]

👋 passing through (hi @turbid sequoia)

[turbid sequoia]

Hello! 👋

[gentle pond]

Hi @hollow igloo Where you flying to / from?

[hollow igloo]

Seattle to Nashville, currently laying over in PDX

[idle trail]

are you going to do some in flight testing?

[hollow igloo]

Not sure about any structured testing, more a look and see thing

[idle trail]

👍

[turbid sequoia]

Spotted

[solar garnet]

willamette valley meshtastic net on 145.290 no tone. wa7abu.com for allstar, echolink and broadcastify. voice channel on this server as well

ham.live for online chat, checkins

[idle trail]

anyone else willing to set up a node with meshlink?

[sharp pilot]

more info?

[idle trail]

discord to meshtastic

and weather info

[sharp pilot]

Hmmm

my node at home is on the internets

[idle trail]

you could cover salem

[sharp pilot]

what all is involved?

[idle trail]

a computer (linux/windows/mac maybe) node and internet

[sharp pilot]

so the node will be connected directly to a computer?

[idle trail]

using serial

[sharp pilot]

ok

[idle trail]

wifi is quite buggy

[sharp pilot]

what if I have a RAK with ethernet module?

thats how my home node is connected

[idle trail]

@solar garnet are there any plans to connect up to Eugene?

👍

sdr

weather info too

[tidal flower]

Hi nick, tried patching in on the handheld tonight but couldn’t reach you guys on 145.290, was excited to once I learned there was a Meshtastic show here on mo day nights. Was bummed I couldn’t listen in so I scrambled and launched a streamer app on iPhone that’s usually for emergency services but was able to find your channel and now I’m streaming you through the iPhone app, pretty slick then I heard you were watching discord so now I’m writing you here 👍🏼

[idle trail]

https://github.com/Murturtle/MeshLink

[tidal flower]

It’s so hard finding the more technical outlets for help on the Meshtastic stuff. Anyone familiar with the cli command lines on programming ? I’ve striped the web looking for instructionals on YouTube ect and there’s just no how tos out there. I have a pi zero board rig with a EBYTE E22 Lora on it so its a little more juiced then the standardized heltec and lillygos , I’m just stumped because it has to be done via the CLI command line, no apps to save the day.

[idle trail]

i just figured out how to use it using meshtastic --help

cli

correct

we should transition to the pdx mesh discord

feature requests for mesh link?

[idle trail]

@solar garnet ^^^

not the vc

how about connecting to central oregon

how has bluetooth range been for everyone? im able to get my node about 100 feet away

👋 @shell river

[shell river]

I’m getting far better BT range with the Rak vs heltec or lilygo core s3. I assume the external BT antenna that comes with the Rak kit gives it an advantage.

[shell river]

Howdy Mur!

[idle trail]

@solar garnet anyone got idea on what commands to add to meshlink

like weather

planning on sos

👋

[ancient tinsel]

ponies

[idle trail]

explain

[ancient tinsel]

farm simulator

[idle trail]

🥴

[shell river]

Things that don’t flood the net are challenging. It would be cool to request local weather alerts. Maybe just the headline?

[shell river]

$fallout

[idle trail]

lol

[ancient tinsel]

SSTV?

[idle trail]

@exotic anchor

familiar?

^^^^

[manic tide]

CQ CQ KG6LSE

[ancient tinsel]

CQ CQ CW BBQ

[idle trail]

@sharp pilot you should join the local discord

https://pdxmesh.com

[heavy hornet]

https://tenor.com/view/herman-munster-radio-cq-headphones-confused-looking-gif-12812282

[solar garnet]

I’ll be in hangouts VC at 8:30 running the Willamette Valley Meshtastic Net

[heavy hornet]

Just checked in but had to leave as I have a net in my local area at the same time

[sharp pilot]

Is TJS (Tan Box) in this channel? I did receive your test DM on YCM1

[solar garnet]

I don’t think he is on discord

[sharp pilot]

pretty quiet in here now that we have the PDX Mesh discord

[turbid sequoia]

Yeah

It's like that time in elementary school when I built a fort and everyone wanted to join my tribe and then there was an election and Sturgis was voted president and then he kicked me out of the fort.

F Sturgis.

Actually this isn't like that at all.

[idle trail]

@dusky niche do you have an linux machine? im trying to test tcp over meshtastic

[dusky niche]

No, not really... Sorry.

[idle trail]

Ok that's fine

[idle trail]

@shadow quest see any portland nodes

[shadow quest]

@idle trail will check later today when I go home for lunch I don't have a mobile on me in the truck today.

[idle trail]

Mattaiden climed mt hood and i saw your node on the map

[lime dew]

Really cool event happening in Portland next weekend that some of you might be interested in. Tear Down 2024.

@vernal hull totally up your alley too

I'm jealous because this really cool creator/maker, Mohit Bhoite, is giving a demonstration. He makes really cool stuff https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2024/short-talk/space-themed-free-formed-circuit-sculptures

[vernal hull]

That looks sweet! Thanks for sharing.

[turbid sequoia]

Whoa! Great use of a mostly-dead mall too.

[shadow quest]

@idle trail Forgot to check yesterday. I don't see any PDX nodes. There was one that pinged from Parkdale area. But wasn't a sat ping just input.

[shell river]

What is the meaning of the large white circles on the map?

[exotic horizon]

it shows how accurate there location is for that node

[lyric zephyr]

Meshtastic net in 5 min at 8:30 pm, WA7ABU.com or 145.29 MHz repeater.

[idle trail]

👋 listening in

@lyric zephyr Salem coverage for meshlink?

@solar garnet

The $weather commands

Discord to meshtastic

Sounds cool

(K1pdx / @turbid sequoia also wrote some of the code)

I saw someone up near Santiam pass with a node. Is there any plan to put a permanent one there?

And did someone see a central Oregon node a few days ago?

@ Mattaidn climbed Mt hood and some nodes from cental Oregon came through

@solar garnet

@solar garnet did you see the xentralnoeegon nodes

Central oregon

[solar garnet]

i didnt. ive been away from the radios

[crystal osprey]

I was driving around John Day Fossil Beds National Monument sightseeing 6/8, 9, 10. I felt like no one was there.

[crystal osprey]

I didn’t boot up one of my node for few days. It might broadcast Dayville fixed position before I cleared. I am leaning new meshtastic etiquette after camping or traveling. 🙂

[turbid sequoia]

Most of the Oregon conversion has moved to: https://discord.gg/rcnePDV9

[solar garnet]

Most of the pdx traffic 🙃

[idle trail]

yup

[solar garnet]

net starting in 20 minutes

[idle trail]

on time today

[idle trail]

@shadow quest how am I receiving g your node.?

[shadow quest]

@idle trail The Universe has aligned.

@idle trail It's on my house in Redmond. Maybe MQTT? I don't know.

[idle trail]

No way

https://meshmap.net/#1439119820 this chad

Oh no I think we lost connection

[shadow quest]

That's crazy. I really need to get up Gray Butte and see what I can see... Life is just crazy.

[solar garnet]

Got a few nodes climbing 3 fingered Jack today

[idle trail]

I wish they were permanent

[solar garnet]

@idle trail That’s how you’re seeing @shadow quest

[shadow quest]

@idle trail Hopefully they leave one?

[idle trail]

Hopefully

[solar garnet]

No. They didn’t take anything to leave

[sonic yarrow]

Three finger Jack would connect the valley to central Oregon.

[solar garnet]

It is temporarily connected today. Tomorrow too when the summit mount Washington

[shadow quest]

Sounds like the weather was less than favorable. But did make contact with replies.

[exotic horizon]

Is there like a Eugene discord Chanel?

[turbid sequoia]

No but #1222229173796343990 message

[finite rain]

Hey that Chad is me lol

[solar garnet]

net starting at 8:30 on 529 linked to https://discordapp.com/channels/867578229534359593/867578229991407658

[idle trail]

Average linux mic

Not working today

[manic tide]

Hello fellow Eugene person!

[exotic horizon]

Yess!!

[exotic horizon]

my node name is p1 if you pick me up

[manic tide]

Mine is ENS

[lyric zephyr]

What does your Eugene mesh map look like? I know a guy in that area that should have some nodes up.

[solar garnet]

@manic tide

[idle trail]

Rip reported by self

[solar garnet]

Yep. But maybe @manic tide can point his beam that direction

[manic tide]

My beam is boresighting the airport so this should work

26 KM dayyyyym

Oh am I reading this right.
Cause this is insane

[shadow quest]

@sharp pilot Are your node positions accurate? When those humans climbed 3FJ I pinged your YMCO 2 @ 206 km. Wondering how accurate that is.

[exotic horizon]

I have not seen anyone yet, just brining around my mobile but I’m going to be setting up a 7 foot 10db antenna in the next coming months

[exotic horizon]

Yep that’s me

We should create a Eugene discord

[solar garnet]

The pdx discord should be for the entire Willamette Valley with channels for cities

[idle trail]

No nodes in sunriver

At least none near the store

[gilded bay]

Hey yall, noobie from Forest Grove here 🙋‍♂️ not really picking up any nodes out here, anyone else out here in hicktown?

[solar garnet]

Nothing reporting on the map https://meshmap.net/

[gilded bay]

I've got one of those 2. There's another 2 nodes that I've picked up that aren't reported on there

[dusky niche]

I thought it weird that there wasn't more showing out there. The terrain doesn't seem much worse than other areas that are lit up...🧐

[idle trail]

Central Oregon people. Anyone floating down Deschutes from la pine state park?

[gilded bay]

That's what I've got out here, based on what I picked up warwalking

[dusky niche]

So much depends on a decent antenna and especially good line of sight to another node...

[gilded bay]

I do plan on setting up a couple of repeaters out here. One base station at my house, and a couple of solar remote repeaters

Hopefully we can get Forest Grove more meshed in

[dusky niche]

The Mesh Must Grow! 😆 👍

[gilded bay]

Speaking of repeaters, what're people running out here? My mobile is just a Heltec. I was looking at getting a couple of t-beams for the repeaters

[dusky niche]

I think the Wisblock system from RAK Wireless uses a lot less power than the T-Beam or the Heltec so would be the choice for solar powered systems.

[gilded bay]

Is is lower power than the T-Beam with the SX1262?

[dusky niche]

I'm not sure. Maybe someone else will know. Most of the Oregon action on this board has lately been in the PDXMesh.com area.

[turbid sequoia]

Yes, significantly

Fixed nodes don’t need gps also. Gps uses a lot of power

Tbeam is esp32 based. The RAK’s we are talking about use nrf52. That’s the difference.

A rak without gps will last approximately 10x longer than a tbeam with gps.

[gilded bay]

Good to know

[turbid sequoia]

Words are hard today, hope that made sense.

[gilded bay]

Made perfect sense! I spent a good portion of today scouting repeater locations, and found a spot above Hagg Lake that would make a good spot for a solar powered remote repeater

[manic tide]

I might be able to ping ya

[gilded bay]

My nodes name is Test1, if you find it

[manic tide]

ok!

[sonic yarrow]

I also have never seen any other modes from various parts of Sunriver.

[idle trail]

Same

[shadow rock]

I'm in Forest Grove and have a powered RPICO upstairs mostly as an in-house relay and MQTT uplink. But I am in a bowl. For some time, someone has had an off/on repeater above Stringtown Road that has great LOS to my house, but that's been absent for a few weeks now. It's funny, I have the parts to make a solar repeater and where they'd placed theirs was almost exactly where I was going to go beg for permission. And it may yet come to that.

[gilded bay]

I'm in downtown FG, so i feel that pain lol i do intend on putting a solar repeater up along the clear cut at Levi Mountain above us, though

[shadow rock]

So that's all Stimson Lumber property. It's a great location, but maybe pretty hard to access. Can see snow getting pretty deep up there. Do you have permission to mount something? Levi Mountain shows up as a hike on alltrails.com. If you're serious and can get permission, I'm happy to help with some $$$ or parts for the node.

The spot I was looking at is on Ihrig Road above Stringtown. Not quite as bodacious coverage as Levi Mountain, but orders of magnitude easier access.

[gilded bay]

I'm looking at this peak right here, sitting at about 1394 MSL. there's a logging road that goes all the way up. i do actually have a buddy that works at Stimson, so i might be able to beg him to get me access to it. Stimson loves to work with community projects, so if i pitch it as one...

[shadow rock]

We're up in Forest Gale Heights...and that Levi spot covers the whole neighborhood, which isn't easy to do. It's lumpy, street up to our house from Gales Creek Road is 0.7 miles of +8% rollers.

[manic tide]

I am sO stupid. I read forrst grove as cottage grove.

I am in eugene. 🤣🤣

[gilded bay]

that would be the LOS between the repeater and middle of downtown forest grove. Yeah, if we can get one up there, that'd be perfect

[manic tide]

BTW what software are ya using to do path surveys

[gilded bay]

https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/

[manic tide]

Ohh sweeet

Thankyou

[gilded bay]

Conceivably, a repeater on Levi would be able to cover from Cedar Hills to Mcminville

[manic tide]

MOTHER OF GOD

I knew my local in Eug was good . but. daym

I need to wardrive up the I5 on a. Beam facing my beam in Eug

[gilded bay]

Yeah, Levi needs to happen. I can hit LOS on Sandy from there

Based on heywhatsthat, longest LOS for Levi Mountain would be the south side of Mt. Rainier, at 115 miles

[idle trail]

Can you share the link

Never mind made one

[exotic horizon]

Not bad, what’s the farthest someone had reached from Eugene

[manic tide]

IVe done right above junction city 32 km

[elder field]

nice

32 km... in freedom units is like what 19.884 FU's (miles)

just setup my first node today... pretty impressed that I was able to msg someone 2.4 miles away. My node is inside my office, got a 7 inch or some such antenna on it.

I'm in Beaverton

[solar garnet]

Lots of people in the pdx area you can reach if your window is facing the right direction

[exotic horizon]

Nice, I’m moving to Eugene and I’m crazy into mesh. Going to set up a crazy 5 foot antenna on my roof

I also have a decent solar node if anyone know anyone up there with a high place

[manic tide]

have fun in the area ! this place is primed and readdy for more nodes.
I have one node up on top of wild iris ridge ....... it can see on paper . to McMinville and blankets most of eugene

[manic tide]

@exotic horizon would you be free for a voice call on here today . ?

[exotic horizon]

Nice, I’m moving towards south Eugene high school

[manic tide]

aweet

sweet

[heavy hornet]

If anyone has a spare rtl sdr and a raspberry pi I would recommend setting this up on a node

https://github.com/RCGV1/Meshtastic-SAME-EAS-Alerter

[sharp pilot]

I happen to have both

[ancient tinsel]

SDR not even needed. just any regular radio should do, yeh?

[exotic horizon]

Has anyone created a dedicated organ discord? I’m thinking of setting up a Willamette Valley mesh discord what are you guys think?

[idle trail]

https://discord.com/invite/yNTE3Hgw

@jude

@exotic horizon

[solar garnet]

Thatt one is only pdx

[turbid sequoia]

@idle trail might be worth changing the name to something a bit less specific. Willamette Valley is good. Is there a name that includes Vancouver WA at least?

Cascadia?

[solar garnet]

There’s already a Cascadia radio server

As well as a Willamette Valley Amateur Radio server.

[turbid sequoia]

For sure but the PDX Meshtastic server is pretty popular and it includes users from southern Washington to Salem and beyond since it’s all one mesh now

A lot of Meshtastic users aren’t hams (yet). So it makes sense to have a specific server.

[solar garnet]

Agreed.

[turbid sequoia]

@gentle pond ^

[shut willow]

Hey folks, checking back in after a hiatus due to life, etc...

so we're over 100 nodes on the local mesh... is it possible to run on a private channel while still contributing to the public mesh?

without seeing any "public" message content

IE: radio presets and channel 20, but only a private encryption key, (assuming that configuration still forwards packets for the public mesh)

Folks are looking at a way to set up a "Net" team messaging "channel" with infrastructure nodes on radio towers, etc...

they definitely don't want any of the current public traffic visible to any of the net team members by default

this is a stop-gap for immediate implementation before the need for segregating to different frequencies to avoid over-congestion

[shadow rock]

So have you made contact with anyone from Stimson WRT to sticking a node up on Levi?

[gilded bay]

Been super busy with work, haven't had the time. Hopefully within the next week or so I'll be able to sit down and see if I can get something worked out

[shadow rock]

Well, as long as the node supports LongFast, I am good for some $$$, parts, whatever to help make it happen.

[gilded bay]

I fully intend on it being a public node. I might put another personal node next to it on a different channel for myself and a prepper group, but there will be a public node up there

[lyric zephyr]

Someone please jump in, but I believe this is possible if you stay on the same LoRa mode i.e. LongFast, but you change the key of the Primary Channel. Your node will still forward all packets, even if encrypted with a different key. You won’t be able to decode messages from the “public” Primary Channel.

[shut willow]

That's the goal

At least until we hit ~200 nodes and the network crashes to its knees

[turbid sequoia]

We are already there

[shut willow]

oh. dang.

So what are folks doing? switching frequencies?

[turbid sequoia]

I think we're exploring options right now. andykirby has asked the UK to switch to Medium Fast. I'm curious how that experiment works out.

The latest firmwary 2.4.0 (released today) should help with a lot of network congestion

The theoretical limit is 300 nodes. We're really close to hitting 300 on the default channel/frequency

I believe Meshtastic was originally designed for small private networks. The "Public Channel" was an unexpected use case.

The Getting Started section of the docs used to include changing from the default PSK as one of the first steps.

[shut willow]

noted

[turbid sequoia]

One thing I've been thinking about is to come up with a private PSK and fairly widely distribute the QR for anyone willing to coordinate efforts

[shut willow]

also good to know 2.4.0 should help; will have to look at the relevant changes

[turbid sequoia]

Most importantly Router-Client is gone. You have to choose between a node with bluetooth vs an infrastructure node

[shut willow]

side note - when @runic brook 's radios are ready I'm going to replace the Banks repeater with one; you mind replacing your Nansen link as well if needed?

little over a watt of link budget with those and band-pass

(obviously we can tune down to lower power if it's not needed)

[turbid sequoia]

Lots of throttling packet sending based on mesh size and chutil too. Good stuff to reduce congestion.

[shut willow]

noted!

I'll probably start using repeater modes for top-of-mountain nodes as well

would be nice to still have once-an-hour or once-every-other-hour battery stat packets just to make sure they aren't slowly dying

but it's not a necessity

even once-a-day may be fine for long term static solar deployments

Mt Scott will have a dedicated power system so I'll definitely have that one running in repeater mode

since it also has internet I may throw an SBC in with ethernet to be able to SSH in and admin the radio

[turbid sequoia]

I haven't tried this but if you know the repeater node ID I believe you can request telemetry using the Python CLI.

[turbid sequoia]

In theory you could even update firmware

[shut willow]

Oh, neat!

[sharp pilot]

Is there a chan for Bend or Redmond?

[shadow quest]

@sharp pilot Just this one as far as I know. Only have a few semi active users. Are / Were you in town? I just saw your message on YCM7.

[sharp pilot]

Yes, I am in Eagle Crest for a few days. I dont golf, so not much to do but play with the mesh

[shadow quest]

@sharp pilot Copy. Enjoy your time here.

[sharp pilot]

Thank you

[elder field]

getting a bunch of chatter on my MQTT topic now... I think I saw someone use a filter or config of some sort for mosquitto to filter out some of the garbage. Any suggestions?

^^^ example

I can't remember if I saw it on a forum or here in chat but maybe someone knows... hard to read. Not sure if I can even parse it

[turbid sequoia]

Can’t quite tell from that snippet but that looks like normal protobuf messages. The json topic is human readable.

[elder field]

ok copy. Yeah just wanted to be sure things are right...

[split tusk]

Greetings all I will be filling in for Nick NT3S on the 529 Meshtastic net tonight. I will do my best to watch this channel too (but the computer is a little bit from the radio, so it might be delayed). I also don't have a way to stream between discord and the repeater, my appologies. You can monitor the program on wa7abu.com

[ashen spruce]

Any idea when the Mt Scott location will be up and running? I'm about to install a node above Laurel on the west side which should be able to see Mt Scott and bridge it over into Hillsboro. i.e., an East side / West side link!

[shut willow]

Maybe a week, waiting on new radio modules in the mail before I can rebuild

Once I have it working I'll coordinate with the site guys and see when we can schedule an install

Actually it'll be longer due to the coordination part

Week before node is built up

[ashen spruce]

Rad. It will probably take me about that long to get out to my friend's place to get my node installed. Please keep me posted so that I can check my connectivity after it is ready!

[glass stirrup]

Hello everyone, I'm searching for a node by the name "MtManEcho" in what looks to be the Portland-ish area. Anyone know it?

[idle trail]

.

does this still happen xD

[idle trail]

Lol

[turbid sequoia]

But sometimes it takes a different route

[timid pilot]

Hey that is me.

[solar garnet]

KNAD 🚀 is you?

[idle trail]

Little suspicious there @turbid sequoia

Hmmm

Miss type I'm assuming

[turbid sequoia]

Won’t let me share a link to a google group

[idle trail]

Ohhh

[turbid sequoia]

Long thread

Meeting coming up

[idle trail]

Oh

[turbid sequoia]

https://groups.google.com/g/portlandnet_aro

You have to be a member of the group but somehow I can see the thread

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/portlandnet_aro/1856761288.1547868.1722389262044%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

Try copy/paste that URL

[solar garnet]

meshtastic net on 145.290 and discord voice channel

[lyric zephyr]

I attended the meeting as a visitor.

[turbid sequoia]

Nice! Anything worth noting?

[lyric zephyr]

In summary, they're proposing equipping their NET team with nodes, will rollout in 2-3 months, maybe. The proposal includes requesting grant money for hardware and in-person classes for configuration and training.

[idle trail]

It would be nice if the NET people would update their firmware because it breaks the hops away value

[lyric zephyr]

It would be nice if ALL people updated their firmware. 😉

[idle trail]

I believe we only need the terewillger Plaza node and the Net nodes

[lyric zephyr]

The NET group has specific goals, which in-turn, determine configuration, deployment, etc. The goals do not include engaging with the greater Meshtastic community. Specifically, they do not use the default Primary Channel.

[idle trail]

They should completely remove their primary channel because if they don't update it won't affect us

And if they set their nodes to only forward when deocoded

And since they don't have the primary channel it shouldn't affect us

[lyric zephyr]

Oh sure...and maybe even use a different modem preset.

[turbid sequoia]

It would make sense to me if they pick a different frequency slot and use whatever preset they determine to work for them. They would control their infrastructure and not get congestion from public traffic in an emergency.

[lyric zephyr]

They’ll need to figure out if they can build out the infrastructure for their own private mesh. I kinda got the sense that they want to leverage the ‘public’ mesh. I probably shouldn’t say much more in a public discord.

[turbid sequoia]

That would be unwise on their part. It only takes a couple of well placed nodes to cover a large area. Setting up their own channel would save them a lot of frustration. There's no telling which nodes will keep working if the power goes out.

[calm dragon]

I'm back after some time away. I'm setting up a home station in aumsville some time soon using a T-beam

I did post a question I had in the help section. I'm having an issue with my Rak4631

[solar garnet]

Welcome back. Mesh has grown substantially since you were on last.

Aumsville is a little tough to get out of currently because one of our high altitude repeaters is offline. But when that comes back online you can get all the way to Portland

[calm dragon]

I've gotten up to Portland a few times and I'm
making a remote build. Just looking for a location to place it

[solar garnet]

Make sure you have an antenna above your roofline for best results

[calm dragon]

Working on that too! I have 2 T-beams that I will dedicate to being remote devices. I know they are power inefficient but it's what I got. I'll be adding solar to it

[solar garnet]

@calm dragonnet starting at 8:30 in hangouts

[calm dragon]

I'm actually out of the country at the moment hahah

[tight sage]

Anyone in Portland want to help get me up and running? I’ll buy you a coffee and we can chat about how to get a node up at my house. I’m near Laurelhurst park which has no coverage last I checked.

[idle trail]

If you would want to find someone to help you a better spot would be pdxmesh.com

[modest vapor]

I didn't pick up anyone between Corvallis and Salem, is that accurate?

[solar garnet]

I’m working on a location that will connect Salem south but currently I’m not aware of any stations with a public position along that stretch of freeway

There is a node that connects Jefferson into the Salem area but I’ve never found its location or talked to the owner

[turbid sequoia]

I’ve switched to MediumFast. Anyone interested in testing with me?

[idle trail]

Getting on right now quite late though

Now on medfast

[rotund helm]

I'm going to be visiting the Portland /Camas WA area soon - hope to see some of you on the mesh

[turbid sequoia]

Nice! I've moved serval nodes to MediumFast but you'll probably see more action on LongFastl tbh.

[rotund helm]

We did some med fast tests here as well. I’ll change my long name when out there to include AustinMesh.org

[ashen spruce]

I've been considering this change also. Do you think enough nodes have made the switch that we'll still have decent coverage? Or is that a cart and horse issue still?

[turbid sequoia]

I'd love to see 200 nodes on medium fast. That's the real test.

[reef cave]

Yes it's not a proper test until there's at least 200-300 nodes. Like the whole point is to alleviate congestion

Can't test congestion if we don't have enough nodes lol

[solar garnet]

were not ready to switch iin salem

[sharp pilot]

This change to MF needs to better planned IMO

[reef cave]

It does. Which I’m hoping maybe the Net can help spread the notion. But to be frank I don't think we'll get full participation - and therefore full benefit - until it's the default in the firmware.

[turbid sequoia]

I'm already enjoying the benefits. Fast acks, no congestion. It's all totally voluntary. I'm inviting anyone who'd like to join the experiment to do so. No pressure!

[reef cave]

Seriously I think it's the right move. BUT until EVERYONE joins in, yes, there will be dead spots and it'll LOOK like it sucks

It's a mode for congestion not sparseness

[turbid sequoia]

My use case is linking my family, which I've already done on MediumFast. LongFast just wasn't reliable here in the "middle" of the mesh.

[sharp pilot]

I feel like this is an all or nothing thing. At least for us out here in the remote wilderness 🙂

[reef cave]

Completely agree with that sentiment

[turbid sequoia]

LongFast on a non-default PSK might be a better long-term solution. I'm doing what the devs recommended as a less drastic measure, becuase it still welcomes anyone without a secret key.

[reef cave]

Doesn't make sense for 20-30 nodes to join, out of 450, and expect the same coverage

[sharp pilot]

yeah

@solar garnet I switched all my nodes to MF. so that has cut down a lot fo our node connectivity in hte valley

and i dont see any other nodes

I will probably switch back to LF

@solar garnet I dont think we are ready for MF until we can get everyont on board

and even then it might not work to linke the valley with PDX

[sweet root]

Anyone going to Oktoberfest this weekend? Expecting a little bit a chaos with the amount of people/cell network but I'll have a node up for fun -- just getting into meshtastic

[solar garnet]

Excellent. I may be there @sweet root

[modest trench]

Yeah I might go to

[rotund helm]

Up in camas visiting from
AustinMesh, if you see OWL or GEKO give me a shout. Picked up 120 nodes so far

[idle trail]

If you go to beaverton switch to mf

[rotund helm]

May send a drone up at some point when visiting with a relay

[idle trail]

Mf = medium fast

[rotund helm]

Yep! I gotcha we were experimenting with that as well in Austin. You have much better topography here for a mesh than we do, similar so SoCal mesh

[sharp pilot]

I just switched YCM2 to MF this morning. Its 2000 feet up in hte mountains with clear LOS to PDX

[rotund helm]

We have some 450+ nodes but a lot of smaller pocket meshes due to the topography

Nice! I’ll fire up another node in MF

What are your key LF nodes at elevation?

[idle trail]

AQ==

Default

[sharp pilot]

I think he meant what are some good nodes we have at elevation

YCM2 was one until I switched it back to MF

I am not sure on the PDX nodes. I am about 30 miles away

[rotund helm]

Yep, which ones are routing the most traffic is what I meant. Trying to get a feel for the mesh topography.

[sharp pilot]

@ashen spruce and @turbid sequoia can answer those

[rotund helm]

Yall have your own discord I should hop on as a guest?

[sharp pilot]

@rotund helm sent you a DM

[idle trail]

@rotund helm try sending a couple messages on medium fast primary

[rotund helm]

Will do, I’ll send out a few tests now. I’m not optimized at all I just have one rak on a desk for now but I’ll set up a couple nodes sometime today or tomorrow.

Just slapped this one up in a window, sending a few tests now

[ashen spruce]

cool logo 🙂

[rotund helm]

Thanks I designed it 😛

[twilit thicket]

I'm in one of the nearby towns, and new to meshtastic - any idea what the coverage is like around here? I have a node set up but no traffic yet, as far as I can tell

[sharp pilot]

it takes time for the node DB to populate. there are also other factors like antenna and location

are you close to McMinnville?

[twilit thicket]

Newberg-ish area

had no idea there was a map 🙃

[sharp pilot]

you might be able to see my node in hte coast range. That one is on Medium_Fast preset tfor a test

I also have another one on top of a roof downtown McMinnville

there are quite a few scattered around this area

[twilit thicket]

is it possible to use both LongFast and MediumFast? or do I have to disable one to use the other

[sharp pilot]

its one or the othter

we are doing a test of MF right now. but its not going to good for certain people

we have a PDX discord, includes the valley and Salem area
https://discord.gg/Zd8nQVha

[twilit thicket]

Setting to MF channel doesn't seem to update the name in the messages tab on my phone - still says LongFast there

[turbid sequoia]

Maybe you entered long fast manually? The default is leaving it blank. The app will fill some thing in for you. It’s different for iOS and android.

[twilit thicket]

Entered that for the message group name? Possibly. Though I can't seem to rename or delete it

[turbid sequoia]

To switch to medium fast, you need to go to the LoRa settings and change the modem preset.

[twilit thicket]

well I want to be on medium_fast - at least to see if I can hit @sharp pilot or hear any traffic from other people in the area. I have the modem set to "MEDIUM_FAST" and that seems to make sense - it's just that on the messaging tab the only group shown there is still called LongFast... so I don't know if sending a message is actually sending in MEDIUM_FAST or not

[sharp pilot]

try closing the app and try again

it should automatically name the channel medium fast

[twilit thicket]

oh pffft yeah that did it

thanks

[sharp pilot]

should look that in hte lora config

[sharp pilot]

thats odd

[twilit thicket]

looks about the same as yours? rebooting the app fixed the messaging title thing

[turbid sequoia]

Nice! Send some messages!

[twilit thicket]

I'll leave the node up in the window until its battery runs out - and I'll send some messages 😁 I have another one getting here sometime in a week or so, and this one will be mounted on the roof with my 2M antenna so hopefully will extend coverage in the area a little bit.

[echo vine]

This is awesome! I bought a couple tbeams over a year ago and didn't connect to anyone. I just pulled em back out today and couldn't believe how many are out there

[solar garnet]

Willamette Valley Meshtastic discussion net will likely be covering the recent medium fast move in Portland.

It will be on the hangouts channel in this server for discord users and on the 145.290 repeater for licensed hams.

Starts at 8:30pm

[calm dragon]

Barring weather, this weekend I'll be attaching a node to a drone and putting it at 400ft AGL above Aumsville. I want to run some range tests. I don't know what day I will be doing it but I'll be running it in CLIENT.

[solar garnet]

Just spoke with YamCo operator. YamCo nodes are rolling back to LF today to support better connectivity in less dense areas south of Portland. If you’re connecting through YamCo you’ll want to switch to LF or find a different link into mf.

[modest trench]

We are trying to do a MF test for this weekend Primarily in the Portland area but if you in a surrounding town and high up enough you might be able to connect but here is the link to the event and the local mesh discord if you want to coordinate or talk with us https://discord.gg/cYhaEuR8?event=1286155045594988655

[shell river]

I'm in, already... 🙂

[modest trench]

https://tenor.com/view/hell-yeah-brother-hulk-hogan-nodding-hogan-gif-12315629892838477060

[solar garnet]

A temporary job site node in east Salem looks to be one of our busiest in the area. Channel utilization is still high this morning. Homeowner has a tower so node will likely go from 12’ to 25’.

Looks like we’ll be maxing out channel utilization on this node regularly. How would I alleviate this?

[modest trench]

you could make it only retransmit packets from known nodes and have it not retransmit unknown nodes

and maybe hop count

[solar garnet]

Why only known nodes? That would do nothing for new users

[modest trench]

I just think it would be better to prioritize the nodes that show up on you node list rather than also forward node packets from unknown nodes with incomplete node info or far enough where only some of their packets come through and I think this would also only forward packets for channels with the same keys as your channels. If the chutil is high anyways I dont think its going to be usefull for the unknown nodes anyways with all the collisions and bad packets

[solar garnet]

Interesting. 🤔 good points. More studying

Who is the West Salem station?

[turbid sequoia]

I haven’t used this setting yet, since your nodedb only holds 100 nodes, what happens when your mesh has more?

[modest trench]

if it has more my guess would be they are nodes that are connected through hops via directly connected nodes

or they could also just be stored I like to sort my node list with the online filter and for hops i set it to direct and usually you will see way less nodes and the ones you do see should have a way higher change of connecting and communicating with

[solar garnet]

Job site node

Ghetto is ghetto does

[shell river]

PDX area meshers, we're looking to do a test of Medium Range-Fast preset starting at 5pm today and through the weekend. If you can, please give MF a try. Take some notes on your experience with messaging, DMs, traceroute and what nodes you discover.
Discussion on MF test here: https://discordapp.com/channels/1222229172991168522/1282833335307075625

[solar garnet]

This will mainly affect Salem area and nodes that regularly access Salem via NT3SRPTRVP

[turbid sequoia]

May be worth posting on https://discord.com/channels/907818316033306704/991378459144224958

I'm staying out of it. I've taken too much heat already for "breaking the mesh".

[solar garnet]

Innovation and performance come with costs. I think it’s good to test with the congestion you have in Portland

I’ll post it in that server

[modest trench]

sorry to spam but if you are interested in participating in the MediumFast experiment please consider joining the event https://discord.com/events/1222229172991168522/1286155045594988655

[teal saffron]

Is there an Oregon dedicated server?

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/9V373Tvz

Most users are I-5 Corridor

[teal saffron]

Just joined, thanks. Yeah I figure there isn't much of anything out this way.

May start a new server as a placeholder, but who knows.

[turbid sequoia]

I'd suggest just using this channel, or adding a Meshtastic channel to an existing server for an electronics or radio group. There was some contention when the pdxmesh server first launched from the Willamette Valley Amateur Radio server folks since it fractured the members.

[solar garnet]

No contention at all in my opinion.

The WVAR is primarily amateur radio

[turbid sequoia]

I probably mis-read or mis-remember the conversations. Easy to make mistakes like that on discord.

[solar garnet]

I think pdx server should be called willamette valley server is the only thing id change

[turbid sequoia]

Here ya go: https://discord.gg/h5CaABvv

[idle trail]

Who is that

I'm by cannon beach

[sharp pilot]

Is KG7BZ on here?

I see your nodes in sweet home

[exotic horizon]

Hey guys if anyone is in the Eugene area come check out https://discord.gg/gf4mShtJz4

[vocal linden]

C7D5 are you on here?

[vocal linden]

Can you confirm this?

That would be 174 miles!

[idle trail]

Probably old location

[vocal linden]

That is what is was wondering

[glass stirrup]

That node is in my node list and its location puts it in my local mesh but I don't recognize it. Last seen 33hrs ago 45 miles from me, two hops away.

[small tangle]

@sharp pilot this discord looks like it's focused around the Eugene area... I see some earlier invite links that are expired... Does anyone have an invite link to a Portland meshtastic discord server?

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/73guCpCM

[exotic horizon]

This one is specifically for Eugene

https://discord.gg/BSuVUsmA

[exotic horizon]

This one is Portland

[small tangle]

Sweet, thanks!

[solar garnet]

It’s all the willamette valley. There are too many

[vernal hull]

Here's a reference I put together for my own use that you may also find useful.

For those times when AM/FM radio is the best way to get the news...

[solar garnet]

Headed to VP to update the router to 2.5.5 I never looked at the admin channel setup so it’s going to remain un administered this go around

[turbid sequoia]

Just grab a public key from one of your home/mobile nodes and pop it in the admin key field of your router. That way you have a way in!

[solar garnet]

Ok

That’s easy enough

[indigo surge]

just getting setup in mt hood area, anyone got a general channel on this side of town?

[turbid sequoia]

You’re likely to find folks on the default LongFast

[indigo surge]

Indeed. I just got a node up and I'm waiting on a better antenna. I'm live in the country, work in the city so I'm not expecting much use till I'm back in town.

[turbid sequoia]

Depending on your elevation you might pick something up. We do hear nodes around Timberline in the city.

[turbid sequoia]

This thread is pretty quiet FYI, we've mostly moved to: https://discord.gg/2aZ8WZFu

[indigo surge]

Just what I was looking for.

[indigo surge]

I'm at 1500ft, I have plans to erect a tower with a solar powered node up on top of the hill nearby.

[crimson spruce]

Do you have a new invite for this local server?

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/vf3Cn8kK

[crimson spruce]

Thank you!

[clear pelican]

@exotic horizon could i get a invite to the eugene? in cg looking to connect

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/4vKqhU8N

[exotic horizon]

Yep, @turbid sequoia has got your back

[gentle wing]

Hey! I’m PDX area, is there possibility of getting a new invite to the PDX server?

[solar garnet]

https://discord.gg/kKgBJMz4

[split tusk]

Are you cooler than NT3S? We got standards you know 😛

[gentle wing]

I won't lie man, that joke went right over my head 😂

[split tusk]

It was a dig at Nick (we know each other sorry humor doesn't traslate well in text). Welcome to the channel!

[idle trail]

Up at bachelor with meshtastic

[idle trail]

Day 2 at bachelor hopefully summit open

[vocal linden]

Ski or snowboard?

[idle trail]

ski

[vocal linden]

I hear we have the deepest snowpack in the country at the moment

[idle trail]

it was 100+ inches base on the last day

yesterday

i could stick my ski pole so deep that it just dissapeared

[vocal linden]

Wow

[idle trail]

good luck if you fall into the deep snow

it was reallyyy puffy

[vocal linden]

Stay away from the tree wells

[idle trail]

no, it was stay away from anything ungroomed

[solar garnet]

Router late where it doesn’t need to be creates problems

[turbid sequoia]

What are we looking at here? One node switching roles?

[solar garnet]

One week ago there were 2 local nodes running router late. Today they are not

[turbid sequoia]

Interesting. Definitely shouldn’t have two within earshot I’d imagine. That’s pretty bad. I know lots of folks are testing mesh sense lately too.

[solar garnet]

Yeah. Router late is a bad thing in my opinion

Too many people are using it instead of client

At least in Salem area

[turbid sequoia]

This is my LongFast node in Portland.

[turbid sequoia]

Perhaps, we'll see if information propagates and congestion improves

I'd be up for testing a non-default default for the area. Something like LongFast with default key but on frequency slot 45 or something. Keep a more organized meshe for those that are more involved.

Everyone's welcome but we could get ahold of the meshers if there was a problem

[solar garnet]

Yeah. I’m considering looking into that or potentially diving into meshcore. Apparently its routing is a bit better. But I have no experience with it yet

[turbid sequoia]

If ya do, I'd love to hear a report!

[solar garnet]

If I do I’ll leave my current nodes/routers on Meshtastic to benefit this mesh while exploring the other

[solar dock]

Any chance you'd be willing to weigh in on this? https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/issues/5851

Do you know why people in your area are using it inappropriately? It's supposed to be an infrastructure role for addressing black spots & problem terrain; it's not intended as a rooftop role or for client devices.

[solar garnet]

From my experience, people are using them because they are not getting every message even though our mesh is still being built out. 2 of the 3 I’m aware of in few square mile area were on flat , wide open exposures. Thankfully those 2 rolled back to client. The 3rd should have a direct connection to a high elevation repeater. It is on a lower elevation side hill facing the repeater with no real geologic features creating a shadow that the node would service.

[solar dock]

Roger. Rooftop nodes, or actual end clients?

[gilded bay]

I hate the hurry up and wait game...

[turbid sequoia]

oof. We had 0 delivery vehicles in our neighborhood today.

[turbid sequoia]

It's these dudes faults
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY3miWfQj0Y&t=38s

[gilded bay]

There was a 100 car pileup on I-84 😭

[solar garnet]

This is what Router Late nodes do to channel utilization

My node operates like normal when I’m anywhere else but at this jobsite there is a router late node less than a mile away

[river berry]

Do you have any "before" figures w/ the same area in terms of ch. utilization spikes when a message comes through?

[solar garnet]

Same node. Same location after the router late was turned off or switched roles

#1196918522706657330 message

This message is from a week ago where we had 2 router late nodes running and then they shut off.

[river berry]

When in that chart did they turn the router late? From what I am seeing the spikes are still largely present (slightly improved?), but the point in time snapshot from the last couple of minutes of telemetry are just on the downswing

[solar garnet]

Not sure when the router late stopped transmitting. But I know my channel utilization dropped and my messages started going through reliably again

[river berry]

It's tough to draw conclusions from this data because you need to have similar patterns of traffic in order to A/B and know exactly when the nodes messages presumably rebroadcasting with Router Later would have been switch to another role, turned off, etc

[solar garnet]

I’m no longer at the jobsite so no anything within the last hour is mobile and traveling away from the location

[river berry]

It's definitely data though for us to keep an eye on with regard to potential utilization spikes if that role is over used in an area. Thanks for sharing

[solar garnet]

My post from 9 days ago is proof positive. I know when they turned off the router late role. And less then a day later this one popped up

My solution will be to move my client role nodes and my high elevation router to private but that will kneecap the local network. Trying to avoid that

[idle trail]

We have pretty consistent traffic here in oregon because the mesh is large enough where a few messages make a small difference

[turbid sequoia]

I'm wondering how much of:
A: the spikes are traffic you wouldn't have otherwise received
and/or
B: the spikes are traffic that you are receiving twice or more due to router late

Nick is towards the edge of the mesh but in the middle 40-50% is normal

[river berry]

Yes, I would want to put this into the simulator to get an A/B test in a vacuum before I see it as a definitive indictment against Router Late. Though I will agree that it's misuse can be problematic in enough concentration.
I remain somewhat skeptical here that 2 nodes in that role would create that much of a delta in ch. utilization as this would indicate:
#1196918522706657330 message

@edgy leaf Can we simulate this in the meshtasticator?

[solar garnet]

I’m right in the middle of the Salem nodes at the jobsite and my Victor point router passes more traffic than any other node south of Portland

The offending mode was turned off or re roled so I’m good.

But the project needs to be aware that there is a problem when the router late role is used in a congested area while in direct los to a primary router

[turbid sequoia]

Ooh, so there's another router in play, which means you're hearing the same packets two or three times at least.

[edgy leaf]

Yes, should be fairly easy to add. I have the ROUTER role already, so it would only be a matter of implementing the delay.

But indeed a poorly placed ROUTER_LATE can be more harmful than a ROUTER as it would not shut up CLIENTs, but instead transmit yet another time.

[solar garnet]

So it looks like the router late node that was banging on the channel utilization was continuously running traceroutes via meshsense.

He said he adjusted his auto traceroute timing and the channel utilization today shows that

Yesterday vs today

[river berry]

That makes a ton more sense. Thanks for the update!

[heavy hornet]

Should trace routes be added to the rate limit list? (As we did with position requests)

[turbid sequoia]

Dang! That's a huge difference. I really need to run some analytics on the portland mesh to see if we have problem nodes causing the majority of congestion. I've noticed Green Bluff is running Router-Client so there's one that could use a firmware update at least.

Nice work tracking that down.

[solar garnet]

We’ll see what comes of it. It’s been 24 months since we found out long node names cause extra traffic and nothing has been changed

[idle trail]

I'm working on a meshlink plugin that detects nodes that don't send their pki key to check for old firmware

[solar garnet]

Y’all are pretty smart

[solar garnet]

No Willamette Valley Meshtastic net tonight unless someone else wants to run it. lightning and flickering power here

[turbid sequoia]

No worries, stay safe everyone. We had a pretty close strike here, the whole house shook and I thought the windows were going to break.

[solar garnet]

Hope all are well

[rocky fiber]

Just saying hello - n00b new se pdx mesh user here, west of tabor

[turbid sequoia]

we've mostly moved conversations to:
https://discord.gg/SQuab39G

[solar garnet]

https://lilygo.cc/products/t3-s3-mvsr?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2vpfGuqW8kacV2IuIA8WeqsWkHnxuyU7wO7Oo37YzXxfvPedFPgQcwBrs_aem_OeQSjqHwi4Wo_r19ksqPUQ

Fun thought

[solar garnet]

last net tonight for WV lora net

[idle trail]

Not active enough?

[solar garnet]

yes

[turbid sequoia]

Thanks for running for so long! Sorry I missed last night, I’m traveling.

[solar garnet]

No problem. The last few months involvement completely changed. And I never wanted to be the major speaker, I only wanted to direct traffic. And the MC fanboy negativity completely ruined my interest in there

[young grail]

is the other server still the place to be? If so can I get an invite?

[idle trail]

https://discord.gg/DMKzPPKm

[young grail]

thank you

[urban gazelle]

New user from Tualatin sayin' hey!

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/eMMq4Exw

[solar garnet]

Sane ole crap 💩

I still fully believe router late roles do more harm than good

[turbid sequoia]

https://meshtastic.org/blog/why-your-mesh-should-switch-from-longfast/

[solar garnet]

Nope

That would leave too many nodes isolated

Plus I’ve already ran a test with meshcore which uses medium fast as default. That level of decode would stop the connectivity from Salem to Portland

[heavy hornet]

Its not feasible to have a mesh which is uncontrolled without any sort of onboarding process

If you really need the range I would suggest sticking to long fast but switching channel slots

[solar garnet]

The only problem we have is router late nodes

[heavy hornet]

Not sure about router late, I heard that you guys had meshsense doing packet storms

[solar garnet]

The same guy was use mesh sense and router late

He said that he minimized the mesh sense spam

Leaving the only issue to be router late or a few hundred invisible repeaters in Salem

[solar dock]

What exactly is it that you think the ROUTER_LATE is doing? Because it doesn't originate any more traffic than a standard client. The only difference in terms of packets transmitted is that rebroadcast is mandatory (assuming there are still hops remaining on the packet).

This does contribute to overall channel util, but not in spikes as you see it there. Spikes like that mean that something is originating traffic in a spiky manner. That something may or may not be meshtastic - other LoRa noise on the same frequency & modem settings can also contribute to that.

[solar dock]

What exactly does he mean by 'minimised'? Meshsense can be pretty chatty, and elicit some chatty responses from the rest of the mesh.

In your shoes, I'd be looking at the log of received packets - that may help you to identify what those spikes actually are.

How many nodes in mandatory-rebroadcast roles can the one with the spiky chutil see directly, without hopping through any other nodes? If you have too many devices in a rebroadcast role, that can magnify any traffic to problematic levels of chutil.

If this is what's happening for you, then you either need to reduce the number of rebroadcasters, or move to a faster preset. Bear in mind that LONG_FAST cannot cope with many such nodes sharing the same airspace; it simply doesn't have the bandwidth. Hence why @turbid sequoia linked that blog post above. Unless you have a very well managed network, there's a decent chance it applies to your situation.

[whole rapids]

The always rebroadcast does not seem completely benign, when used in busy meshes all of the router roles seem to have a detrimental effect, router late is being used for a lot of urban rooftop nodes.

I think it would help to prevent client connections with router late, the hybrid roles get misused a lot.

[solar dock]

Yup - it increases overall chutil, as I mentioned above. Which if there isn't enough bandwidth in the channel to handle, can cause problems.

[solar dock]

I agree. I'm all in favour of that. It was never intended for rooftop nodes, and if it's being abused for that to the point where it's degrading meshes, then some restrictions on how it can be used are warranted.

I'm also a great fan of locking all the mandatory-rebroadcast roles behind remote admin (i.e. so that you can only set the role to that via remote admin). That ensures at least minimal competency on the part of the user, plus it gives them a way to correct their mistake (if they picked the wrong role) without needing to physically reach a node that is hard to get to.

[solar garnet]

The “spiky” times are when I’m at that jobsite

[solar garnet]

I’ve looked at the logs 🪵 this has been going on for months.

Router late is the issue. I was there when he turned it on.

Then it got compounded by mesh sense sending trace routes continuously which makes router late even worse

[turbid sequoia]

I agree that a misused role will be poor for the health of the mesh. Though we have ~300 active nodes on the default preset which was never promised or intended to handle that many.

Still many with very old firmware too.

[solar dock]

What specifically is ROUTER_LATE doing, that you think is responsible for those spikes? At the moment, the only info you've provided is "this problem started happening around that time, plus also some other stuff happened around then which also caused issues." That isn't enough to go on; if you want this fixed, then the actual root cause needs to be identified.

I wrote the code for that role, and have a number of them deployed on a fairly busy mesh here. They do not cause the behaviour you are attributing to it, and the RL role should not even be capable of causing it at all. It should add, in the absolute worst case, one additional rebroadcast of each packet with remaining hops. So slightly higher channel util, but not the massive spikes that you seem to be seeing.

[solar garnet]

That’s for you to figure out. Not me. I’m telling you there’s an issue. It’s been brought up before.

Scroll the history in this channel

[solar garnet]

We don’t have 300 active nodes in Salem. We have roughly 120 at any given time

[solar dock]

Mate, if you cannot give me any info, there are confounding factors on your mesh, I can't replicate it, and nobody else is reporting the issue, then the onus is on you to make yourself helpable. Casting wide aspersions on ROUTER_LATE with no underlying data to support the claim doesn't help anybody, least of all yourself - it's just baseless moaning.

I am not a magical mind-reader of nodes. I cannot see what your mesh is doing at that site, and if you refuse to provide any useful info, then that's on you.

Either provide the data that will allow me to assist you (and to be clear, what I'm asking is pretty trivial, and I can assist you with getting the logs if you don't know how), or you can live with the problem indefinitely.

[solar garnet]

You’re wrong

The issue wasn’t there until the node started running router late

Then he compounded the problem with mesh sense

He states that he disabled the rate of trace route refresh on mesh sense and the problem is still there

And now there is a second node running router late within a mile of the other

[solar dock]

You've said all that. Repeatedly. What you have never done is actually tell me what the node is doing, that is leading you to think RL is the issue. I've been asking you that for months now.

[solar garnet]

Which doubles the last retransmission of every packet

[solar dock]

It's a mandatory-rebroadcast role. If you have two of them, then yes... they are both going to rebroadcast. The whole point of the role is to rebroadcast.

Unless you have a good reason to have two of them that close together, get rid of one. This is a network design issue, not a software bug.

[solar garnet]

Months? I’ve never talked to you before tonight except the night you popped on my evening net

[solar dock]

I was in the original conversation too. I've been watching (and jumping into) threads that mention ROUTER_LATE since I added the feature in December.

That conversation history you mentioned? I was involved in it at one point.

[solar garnet]

I cannot force them to get rid of a role.

But I can bring the flaws of a role to light

[solar dock]

If there are flaws, then yes - please absolutely highlight them. Then I can fix them.

But you refuse to say what the issue is.

[solar garnet]

I can’t wait until selective routing is a thing so I can stop dealing with idiots

[solar dock]

SR doesn't help for broadcast traffic unfortunately, which is what most of excessive the traffic problems are 😞. It's great for directed stuff though.

Unless you mean something other than the targeted nexthop in 2.6?

[solar garnet]

That’s a fair point. Maybe just the possibility of banning packets from specific nodes

[solar dock]

Yeah, that would be quite helpful.

[solar garnet]

I tried the ignore feature but that doesn’t solve the issue of a role being used improperly

[solar dock]

Should be fairly straightforward to extend that to ignoring it for routing as well. I'm happy to do a PR for that.

Will try to get that in this week. Please feel free to remind me if I don't tag you on something that implements this by Friday.

[heavy hornet]

Yes please do that

That would be cool

[solar garnet]

I still believe router late role creates too much traffic in my area. Especially when running on multiple nodes use mesh sense

[solar dock]

If you mean that just the intended rebroadcast traffic is too much - then that is a network design issue, and those nodes are using the wrong role. They need changing to something else that doesn't rebroadcast everything to free up the airtime.

If you mean that the RL role is originating excessive traffic, then I need the details of what that traffic actually is, because I cannot replicate it here, and there's nothing in the code that should be doing this.

[solar garnet]

But that’s improper use of one facet as you see it. I see it as a problem with Meshtastic as a user

[solar dock]

Can you expand on that? A regular user should not be using the RL role at all. It's intended for infrastructure relay sites to deal with problem terrain.

Or do you mean that the chaos which can result from a poorly designed network impacts users badly? If that is what you mean, then I agree with you.

[solar garnet]

I’m saying those nodes using that role are causing the problem for me.

I cannot force them to change on an open network therefore it’s a problem with the role for me

[solar dock]

Aah, now I think I see what you're getting at. We were talking about two different things the whole time. I thought you were saying that there was a bug in the role that was causing it to originate excess traffic.

And yeah... abuse of rebroadcast roles is a huge headache unfortunately 😞. That is the reason why ROUTER_CLIENT was removed.

[solar garnet]

I suppose I could make my entire mesh private and make growth stagnant

[solar dock]

How large is it? Honestly, if the experience is crap on your current one, a move to any non-default channel or modem preset plus some reasonable advance planning of router sites has a decent chance of being sufficient to solve the issue, without putting overly large barriers to entry.

And if you go with a faster preset, there's also more headroom to cope with people who set inappropriate roles on their home nodes.

[solar garnet]

It is what it is. But the idea of blocking node traffic is a winning idea

Thanks for your time

[solar dock]

There's been some discussion about making it impossible to use ROUTER_LATE via Bluetooth, same as the regular ROUTER role. That might help a bit with potential abuse of the role.

[solar dock]

Any time. Sorry I was grouchy above - I think we just had a giant misunderstanding.

[idle trail]

or even further make it a different firmware so people will only use it in dedicated places

[solar dock]

I will add this.

For clarity, to make sure we're talking about the same thing: the idea is to prevent nodes from rebroadcasting traffic that originates from an ignored node. Do I understand correctly?

[solar dock]

Different firmware likely will not happen. It's been suggested before, and there are a number of issues with going down that path.

Making it only possible to enable via remote admin is something I've been pushing for for a while though. If you want to chime in on the feature request thread, that would be helpful.

https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/discussions/6367

[full current]

anyone in southwestern oregon

[full current]

Or know if the nodes in the Medford area network are running the default channel

[turbid sequoia]

might check in https://discord.gg/Q6AJxrX6

[full current]

thanks

[solar garnet]

SeaPac channel will be long fast default and I’ll have some official Meshtastic stickers to hand out

[turbid sequoia]

Hey y'all, I'd like to see MediumFast could work for Oregon. Anyone up to give it a try for a few weeks?

[whole rapids]

Do medium slow has had better results in large meshes

[turbid sequoia]

Dang what am I going to do with all these posters?

[fluid wind]

Is this where the People are?

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/B8j8rfj2

[teal saffron]

Not trying to take away from other Oregon servers, but we have just created a Central Oregon Discord server. If anyone is a Discord Guru, would love some help running it and gettings things built out. Feel free to DM me.

[glossy shore]

Anyone in Hillsboro

[turbid sequoia]

Lots https://discord.gg/CaQ2uWHe

[dusky anchor]

hi all, I'm a newbie to this tech and have just received a T-Deck Plus and flashed the latest Meshtastic firmware. Is there anyone here in Salem that may be able to help me troubleshoot my device?

[turbid sequoia]

Lots of folks in Salem hanging out in: https://discord.gg/3WPcSewj

[solar garnet]

Welcome. When you see NT3S in the node name that’s me.

What’s going on with your node?

https://discord.gg/SmQ2jZVC

Smaller group on that server and it focuses on the entire valley

[turbid sequoia]

Hey everyone, MediumFast worked pretty well and we had about 50 people on the network! Reach and reliability was a bit iffy so we're going to try MediumSlow for the entire month of August. Join the fun!

[solar garnet]

What is the difference between running medium slow and long fast?

[turbid sequoia]

A common point of confusion is thinking “Long” and “Fast” are separate traits. In reality, these terms are part of specific preset names. For example: MediumSlow, is faster than LongFast.

MediumSlow uses a Spread Factor of 10, while LongFast uses 11.
https://meshtastic.org/docs/overview/radio-settings/#presets
This makes MS transmissions a bit shorter but connections require a stronger link by about 2.5dB. LF can decode with SNR down to about -18dB, while MS needs about -15.5dB or better.

Shorter transmissions help with congestion and can help avoid packet collisions. There's a great write-up in the blog:
https://meshtastic.org/blog/why-your-mesh-should-switch-from-longfast/

[solar garnet]

Oh perfect. Thanks for the explanation. I just couldn’t remember what the spread factor was for each. From my experience with meshcore I know the sf of 10 won’t do what we need to get from Salem to McMinnville or Salem to Colton

[turbid sequoia]

@sly flare I (xLF) heard you
from: https://dash.pdxlocs.fun/map

[sly flare]

Oh cool, that was me coming back from defcon!

[turbid sequoia]

There's a group of us testing out ⁠custom modem settings to see if we can avoid interference from smart meters and improve data rate. The more people we can get to join, the better! If you'd like to participate you can use this link or QR code. Be warned, it will wipe out any custom channels you've set up. Otherwise you can make the settings manually.

Use Preset: False
Bandwidth: 125
Spread Factor: 8
Coding Rate: 5
Frequency Offset: 0
Override frequency: 906.5 MHz

Channel Name: MeshOregon
PSK: AQ==

(note that selected preset and frequency slot are ignored but may still be displayed with these settings)

https://meshtastic.org/e/#Cg8SAQEaCk1lc2hPcmVnb24SGBh9IAgoBTgBQAVIAVAeaAF1AKBiRMgGAQ

[solar garnet]

What is the actual range? SF and coding rates are almost the same as what MC is using in the PNW and connectivity is poor?

[turbid sequoia]

As the saying goes, "Your mileage may vary". I just picked up a nodinfo from Salem on a bike ride in Portland.

[solar garnet]

You successfully messsged?

[turbid sequoia]

If I'm up to speed on "The Meshcore" they are using a bandwidth of 67.5, whereas we are testing 125kHz.

[turbid sequoia]

No, I didn't notice I'd picked up the nodeinfo until I got home.

We are having really great results though. There is a steady 1-way link from a node here to Salem. The node here seems very deaf so the owner will be installing a filter shortly.

[turbid sequoia]

The idea being that we hopefully squeeze in between the smart meters band plan.

[solar garnet]

Let me know when that link comes up dependable and I’ll push for a test in the area

[turbid sequoia]

In two locations in Portland, we've noted these frequencies, the x.0, x.2, x.4, x.6, x.8 are being heavily utilized

We picked 906.5 so anyone with a filter tuned for LongFast can still participate in the test.

[solar garnet]

By winter I’m putting up 2 high elevation nodes. One east. One west. Both above 3500 feet

Hopefully we’ll have a stable link and the same settings as you

What do you think @lyric zephyr ?

[lyric zephyr]

Well...I can flip a pocket node over to something other than default MT settings...whether that be custom, MedSlow, MedFast, or even Meshcore. But it's difficult to switch over all my nodes, not just because of elevated nodes, but also because the default LongFast in Salem mostly works. Salem hasn't really hit issues of high chutil.

[turbid sequoia]

I think one of the biggest reasons we are looking to switch is to weed out the nodes running ancient firmware and/or using less-than-optimal settings.

We are definitely not asking for every node to flip at the moment. Our tests are looking good though and since LongFast has a lot of redundancy right now it could be educational if a few high-elevation nodes joined the fun.

I'd be curious what your ChUtil is on your infrastructure nodes? A Salem user sent me this from a node just above the tree tops.

I'd also be very curious to know what the general neighborhood noise floor looks like around Salem. You can see in the screenshot above the recorded peaks in my area.

User @real lance just launched an amazing draft of a website to help raise awareness of the ongoing testing:
https://meshoregon.com/meshtastic-alpha-club/

feedback welcomed!

[turbid sequoia]

From Nansen Summit Portland/Lake Oswego to South Salem

[solar garnet]

Who has that Costco node?

Is it @real lance ?

[sharp pilot]

Hey guys!!! 😀

[turbid sequoia]

Heyyyy

[sharp pilot]

Long time no talk

Nothing new going on here in the desert. I have a total of 3 contacts on my mesh out here. 😌

I see you guys are pretty busy as usual

[real lance]

Yup.

[solar garnet]

Successful conversations?

Or just telemetry?

[turbid sequoia]

KSN is unmonitored but a trace route at least shows two way coms.

[solar garnet]

More like unintentional connectivity than intentional communication

[real lance]

As far as I know nobody else in Salem is running the test settings yet.

[solar garnet]

If I have time tomorrow I’ll flash a solar node and place it at elevation

[solar garnet]

Do you think you can pass traffic to Portland reliably now?

[real lance]

Not yet. Right now its best direct links are to 2 radio tower nodes in Portland which are somewhat receive deaf. It’s only intermittently 2-way at the moment to those. They ordered filters though and they’re going to add them in the next couple days, which should theoretically push it over the edge into working. If not I’ll revise some more on this end.
@turbid sequoia was able to make a direct link to the Salem node from a peak using a handheld up there so theoretically it should work once those tower nodes are corrected.

[solar garnet]

Progress

[shell river]

We miss you man 🫶 Hope things are going well for you!

[sharp pilot]

Things are going ok. Mesh out here is non existent. I am working with someone to get a node on a radio tower to bridge my location to Kingman.

Other than that, just enjoying desert life and lots of awesome thunderstorms

I see you guys are working on a direct Link from PDX to Salem?

[shell river]

There's an experiement going in with custom LoRa settings. It's working very well. The LongFast setting has plenty of connections to PDX, but this custom setting can also connect to PDX but at a faster rate.

Just need to get the numbers up for critical mass of Salem meshers with some well placed nodes.

[exotic horizon]

Meshcore also has a decent link from Eugene to pdx

[sharp pilot]

So about this meshcore....?

[turbid sequoia]

On the plus side, you don't have to buy a bunch of new radios

[sharp pilot]

Will there ever be a wholesale switch to meshcore?

Seems like it has better routing

[turbid sequoia]

It has fixed routing, only works with fixed infrastructure. Terrible for camping, events, disaster, etc.

[sharp pilot]

Is it more user friendly than meshtadtic?

[turbid sequoia]

No it's much more confusing imo

[sharp pilot]

Kk

[turbid sequoia]

I don't mean to speak poorly, it has it's applications surely!

[sharp pilot]

Well, guess I will stick to meshtastic then

So if you wanted to establish a dedicated network meshcore would be the way to go

[turbid sequoia]

It's still pretty new kid on the block. basically every user has to have two nodes, a client and a router. I'm not convinced it will scale.

[sharp pilot]

Oh, check out the view from my back patio. Desert life

[turbid sequoia]

You must of loved the sandbox as a kid

[sharp pilot]

And my node

Haha. I love it out here

Don't ever have to worry about my solar node not having enough charge

Surrounded by mountains out here

[turbid sequoia]

It does look really pretty tbh

[sharp pilot]

That's why I don't have a mesh. Kingman and Bullhead city/Laughlin are on the other side of the mountains from me

The sunsets are amazing. Every night..and the stars.... I can see the milky way every night out here

[turbid sequoia]

Oh yah, Meshcore has a "room server" role which seems like a better version of "store-and-forward"

[turbid sequoia]

Yeah I do appreciate the stars when I visit AZ

Oro Valley every December-ish

[sharp pilot]

Next time you are down here... I am an hour and a half from Vegas

[turbid sequoia]

I'll bug you for sure if I'm every nearby. We fly into Tuscon mostly

[sharp pilot]

Oh. That's a ways away from me

I am up North

[turbid sequoia]

I'll bug you in I'm ever in Vegas then!

[sharp pilot]

Yeah. For sure

Do you know if that node I left up in the coast range is still active?

[turbid sequoia]

I think it got switched to meshcore if i recall correctly. A lot of the "experimental" folks switched over to try something new

Was that on "Ball bearing hill"?

[sharp pilot]

Yeah. Close to there

I gave it over to someone. Can't remtwbonit was anymore..lol

He was from Mcminnville

[turbid sequoia]

meshcore map. I do run a router and client because I have too many nodes.

[sharp pilot]

That would be it

Maybe I will setup a meshcore node too. I have a bunch of extras

So I need a node as a router and then just a client node?

[turbid sequoia]

I think so, I sent you a discord invite, those folks'll know more about it

[sharp pilot]

Got it

Now to find a place to put a node on my acre of property.... 😀

[turbid sequoia]

hmmmm

[exotic horizon]

It’s better for if the infrastructure is already there. It’s worse if you just set up a ton of nodes in a new place without any planing that where Meshtastic comes i

[normal topaz]

After seeing some offroading videos that utilized Meshtastic, I was curious about it and I'm thinking on making my own node to check it out. Something I was wondering about is how big the Meshtastic community is in Oregon, and if I would receive any signal from other nodes with me being out towards Molalla?

[turbid sequoia]

We have a pretty large community and I've seen at least a handful around Molalla.

[normal topaz]

That's awesome

Out of curiosity, do you have any recommendations on what hardware to get, and where to order it from?

[turbid sequoia]

ummm, you're talking to a guy who has all the things from all the places. Hard to narrow it down honestly. hehe.

[normal topaz]

Oh, lol

[turbid sequoia]

sensecap t1000e is good to go, heltec t114 is great. Most of my gear is RAK4631 with 19007 base boards.

https://store.rokland.com/products/rak-wireless-wisblock-meshtastic-starter-kit

Depends if you're into diy or ready to go off the shelf

plus mobile/base/pocket/car/etc

A lot of folks start with a HeltecV3 which can be had pretty cheap but doesn't have great battery life.

(battery also not included)

Elecrow ThinkNode's look pretty hot these days but I haven't had my hands on one

[normal topaz]

While trying to look up how to make it, I seen a few videos of people using the RAK board, but I kept seeing a lot of people also using the Heltec as well. I wasn't sure what the differences were.

I figured to attempt assembling one, I like going the DIY route at times. Plus it'd be an excuse to use my printer to make a case, lol.

[turbid sequoia]

RAK is nrf52 based, HeltecV3 is esp32. ESP has wifi but eats battery way faster than nrf

[normal topaz]

Ohhhh

[turbid sequoia]

You may find some locals on the pdx server: https://discord.gg/x2hRzxJV

[normal topaz]

Thanks, I'll take a look

[hollow sable]

Anyone here attend BSides?

[turbid sequoia]

Definitely had a few people join the Portland Discord from that event
https://discord.gg/ecDCppNb

[hollow sable]

Thanks for the Add

[pallid ravine]

So im just getting into this hobby, currently waiting on my first 2 devices. But has anybody tried to place repeaters up in the hills or is that something unrealistic? I'm wanting to have communication from mollala silverton area, too possibly the Lebanon area. Is it doable? I'm still learning about radio and meshtastic

[turbid sequoia]

Totally doable

[pallid ravine]

I'm aware that I need to maintain less than 7 hops just unsure how to go about placing repeaters at the ideal distance

Going to be an interesting project as long as I'm not waisting my time

[pallid ravine]

I'm curious how big the mesh is around here

[turbid sequoia]

https://malla.pdxlocs.fun/map
This is reading data from an MQTT server so it may not all be RF links.

[turbid sequoia]

try playing around with https://site.meshtastic.org/

[pallid ravine]

Awesome thank you!

[solar garnet]

Depending on your location and node settings there is already a node that is line of site into Lebanon.

There are hills and the Santiam canyon in between Lebanon and Silverton. That would require serious planning

[wheat dove]

Hello Oregonegians, Nevada checking in. Do you have any signal going our way yet?

if any of you want to drop in, we are having our weekly meshup today @ 6

[pallid ravine]

@nt3s yeah my plan im thinking is splitting the difference and checking signal, and between nodes, and work my network in sections. Hoping that'll work

[wheat dove]

Anyone in here want to help me build an NV<->OR link?

[idle trail]

The valley and central oregon arent connected yet, the majority of users are in the Willamette Valley.

[wheat dove]

Do you guys have one on Mt Hood or nearby there?

or Bend?

[idle trail]

We do not have one on mt hood, there's quite a few in Redmond and Bend.

[wheat dove]

I can get you to Reno NV like this:

Portland->Hood->South Sister->Yamsay->Gearhart->Crane->Yellow->Granite->Tule->Peavine->Reno

[wheat dove]

I don't see any from Bend on the map. Is there a Portland<->Bend link already?

[idle trail]

I haven't been on long fast in a while we are using custom modem settings due to congestion. There is probably not a link.

[wheat dove]

Oh interesting, what custom settings are you using?

[idle trail]

https://meshoregon.com/meshtastic-alpha-club/

If you arent in this server, this is where most of the people are
https://discord.gg/XFdFMEHBD

[wheat dove]

just joined thank you!

[light quarry]

Hi! New user and wanting to make sure I’m not competing with any nodes!

I’m out in cedar mill, near the top of the hill at 500ft of elevation.

Waiting on my first handheld and starting to research to build some nodes.

Was curious if there was a new invite to that server possibly?

Thanks!!! Excited to be here.

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/PrStr9pua

[idle trail]

113th? Thats where I am!

[light quarry]

Nice! I’m off 119th.

[solar garnet]

anyone running 433 mhz?

[tall mist]

Hi, I’m new here 👋🏻 I have my hardware, but I have not set it up yet and I’m in Portland, Oregon, on the SW side. Can anyone point me towards places where I can connect with my neighbors who are already set up and Foks that might be able to help me set mine up? Thank you.!

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.gg/K3HUeFcWE

[idle trail]

Ahh beat me too it

[turbid sequoia]

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-dwight-schrute-i-am-fast-snake-mongoose-panther-rainn-wilson-gif-25505022

[turbid sequoia]

https://discord.com/events/1222229172991168522/1474645151552114901

[mental comet]

Hello SE Portland (Woodstock). 👋

[turbid sequoia]

Hello! You’ll find us in https://discord.gg/TWdFVs5uX

[real pilot]

LongFast spam in Portland

[turbid sequoia]

Yeah, that's been a plague lately. Someone sending bytes as text message

[turbid sequoia]

Join us on meshoregon.com

LongFast is unusable

[sour crystal]

Hello from South Portland!

[vague orchid]

Hello! May want to join us on the PDX Mesh Discord

https://discord.gg/TWdFVs5uX

Lot more people over there 🙂

[sour crystal]

Thanks … I have had a node for about … er, I put it together in about 20 minutes before I walked out the door yesterday and had it charging off a battery in my pocket. And then promptly ignored it for 3.5 hours because I've only got the one phone to work with here … I might need to correct that soon.