US Arizona

[dense sonnet]

Niceee

[golden hornet]

I sent a drone up to inspect it, it's still there, so it didn't get knocked over by the wind, or the rattlesnake I stepped on, so I don't know why it died

[dense sonnet]

Did the battery look super low metrics wise if you got any before it disappeared? quite weird

[golden hornet]

Battery was at 94%

[dense sonnet]

oh wow yeah that is weird

[golden hornet]

My next repeater will have magnets on the box so I can grab it with a drone

[cold plume]

That guy doesn't look happy.

[golden hornet]

Wellll.....I stepped on him and woke him up

[cold plume]

Yikes.

[light spoke]

@crichton , went thru your area today. Sent messages, had 3 contacts, but they werent you. Went thru el past this am, lots of nodes showed, no answers, someone evidently on mqtt, but not Ric..

[wintry vault]

Finally picked up some new antennas to replace stock, have 30 nodes now, have mqtt off, any way to tell if any of these nodes are uplinking from mqtt?

Wanna know if this over the air or not, huge difference from the 1 node id occasionally pick up on my stock antenna

[steep harness]

Anyone see the easter egg?

[dense sonnet]

Ima take a wild shot and say the dots are groups of nodes on our current map?

[steep harness]

No, but that would be cool. Just a symbol of a mesh.

The colors

[dense sonnet]

I was thinking too hard Would be a pain to update

Been looking into more information on obtaining land approval, has anyone thought about mixing geocaches and Meshtastic, maybe even using Meshtastic to announce people finding the cache? It seems geocaches are allowed on state trust lands here pending you having the permit? Seems this is under 20$~ a year.

[steep harness]

That's pretty cool, announcing finding it via a node. But I doubt we can classify it as solely a geocache since it's a radio. I would imagine there's different rules.

[dense sonnet]

That is definitely something to watch for, I’ll have to see if I can find some concrete info on that.

[faint creek]

Anyone else going to be at Overland Expo and/or camping nearby Flagstaff with their gear this weekend? I'm hoping to do some demos for some guys meeting me there from across the western US.

[spark acorn]

doing anything with https://arizonamesh.org/, or is this solo/only meshtastic devices?

[steep harness]

Actually, I wasn’t even aware of that organization. Interesting. No, nothing affiliated with them. This is strictly for the Meshtastic community in AZ. Looks like they’re AREDN.

[spark acorn]

I went to a meet up and they are about all mesh stuff, had a few guys there helping with meshtastic, and the main guys home who hosted= has a node on his repeater tower on his roof- so they are at least into a bit. But def seemed more into AREDN and TV = which was cool to see and learn more about

[steep harness]

Oh nice

[spark acorn]

can see how a site focusing on just this, and being up to date....should be very appealing and popular. When does it launch?

[steep harness]

No ETA yet. Unfortunately, real-world responsibilities here lately have really limited my spare time. Should slow down in the next few weeks and I hope to get something basic up and expand from there.

[shell cypress]

This is awesome! I've been busy lately but hopefully I'll have a chance to focus on projects soon. I'll be on the lookout.

[cold plume]

Thanks for all the ACKs today Tucson.

[young vine]

On a flight passing over AZ and will be spamming as RAKshaw

[wraith shale]

know what part of AZ you'll be over?

[young vine]

Crossing north of Phoenix west to East

[wraith shale]

likely I won't see ya then down south, but keep an eye for !6F369B8F/MTLM, might get that one! (not my node, but it's on a nearby mountaintop, haha)

[young vine]

Above Prescott and got an ack

[wraith shale]

they've got a lot of nodes up there, not surprised haha

[gilded jacinth]

Something happened in the past weeks in the Meshtastic community. Both Josh (Ham Radio Crash Course) and Jason (Ham Radio 2.0) just put out new Meshtastic videos in the past week, their last videos on Meshtastic (which is where I initially learned about it) are over 2 years old. Josh is live streaming from Hamvention right now and he just turned on his Meshtatstic devices and he said the mesh at the convention is blowing up! Hopefully more Hams from AZ who are at this convention will come home with Meshtastic on the mind. Were blowing up boys!

[golden hornet]

They made huge strides with the firmware in the last 2 months

It's a more refined product now

[gilded jacinth]

Is there a breakdown of what those strides were? I haven't really been following the development of it, but I do update when I see new numbers on the flasher, lol.

[gilded jacinth]

Anyone familiar with this node up on Shaw Butte?: SHA-JarsCorporate_af60

[wraith shale]

Maybe @cold plume ? I think he's mentioned Shaw Butte

[golden hornet]

https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/releases

[gilded jacinth]

I was asking for him, hes the one that discovered it.

[wraith shale]

ah! well then my response seems a bit silly haha. no idea, good luck 🙂

[gilded jacinth]

Ok team. @cold plume and I need some assistance. Paul was up on Shaw Butte today installing a permanent solar powered router "(OO7) Solar not Stirred" (Wisblock in a solar light enclosure). I was helping test connections from my location and I was unable to get a direct connection even though I have clear LOS to the peak of Shaw Butte. He had his mobile node (RM24) Rooster Mobile with him and I was able to pick that one up just fine, but I could not pick up 007 even though he was right next to it. I did pick up 007 as a hop from RM24, but not directly. I have also picked up my buddy (DIRT Mobile) every time he hikes Shaw Butte and he is using a Tbeam with the default antenna.

What could be our issue with 007?

[golden hornet]

@gilded jacinth what role is it set to?

[cold plume]

Router

[golden hornet]

If it's Repeater or Router it'll be invisible

If you set it to Router Client then it'll be visible

[cold plume]

It was on client when he saw it

[wraith shale]

Router will still be visible, also, sends nodeinfo and such. Just isn't usable over bluetooth

try router-client though, wisblocks are sometimes weird on router mode

[gilded jacinth]

@cold plume That could be the BT issue you were having?

[cold plume]

Something else strange, I reset node list on mobile, drove down the mountain, the list did not repop until I hit 17 and Northern.

Dead spot near thunderbird school area?

[cold plume]

Could be

And saw this node up there.

I think Jars is a dispensary?

[cold plume]

Node 88ac, are you here?

[cold plume]

Anyone know what is going on here?

Other than "spam"

[steep harness]

Range test

[cold plume]

Ahhh

[steep harness]

Do you have it enabled on that device?

The text message should only be visible if it’s enabled.

[cold plume]

Honestly I don't know, have not seen this before

Will check thx

Under which section?

Pls

[steep harness]

Module config, range test

[cold plume]

Sure enough enabled. Been on default settings since setting this one up. First time seeing it. Was up to seq 18, thx man.

[steep harness]

Must have inadvertently turned it on then. It’s not enabled by default.

[wintry vault]

can that not be run on a different channel thats not longfast lol

[cold plume]

Yes, must have been the case.

[steep harness]

No, the messages will go over the primary channel. But you have to enable it on the receiving device in order to even see those messages as text messages.

[wintry vault]

Ah yeah, I run a private channel as primary, and LongFast as secondary

[steep harness]

I don't think that's the case with the previously mentioned organization. From my research they look like a legit organization of enthusiasts that are passionate about their AREDN mesh. Nor do I have any intentions for an organization like that.

[slate spindle]

Till they get their first jet plane😉.

[steep harness]

lol look at their website. I highly doubt that’s in the cards.

[slate spindle]

What about the dancing girls?

👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️

[steep harness]

Alright, I’m moving on.

[wary dirge]

I have a node on Towers Mountain

[shell cypress]

That could possibly be relaying traffic?

[wintry vault]

What’s the name of that node?

[spark acorn]

Meet up was at main guys house. He was SUPER nice. Every one there was super nice and super into radio stuff.

They were holding multiple little break out sessions and helping people.

House has a big tower on it and a mesh node up there for free for over a year.

They seemed like other super helpful HAM guys I’ve met who are doing their all to spread the hobby.

They did not seem loaded…..

Odd take when you learn what they are all about and doing…

Anyways driving up north today. Will have my RAK on my car and will be sending some messages.

[cold plume]

I spy with my little eye...... Maricopa, where are you?

[sudden moat]

It's that one brick isn't it!?

[cold plume]

No fair, you are good.

[sudden moat]

Nothing gets past my eagle eye

but just the one, the other one is useless

[cold plume]

Only picking up one node in this area.

If that is mesh, would expect 2 at least with the omni and yagi.

[golden hornet]

That may not be meshtastic

[cold plume]

Agreed

[golden hornet]

Could be helium, or other LoRa

Could also be utilities

[cold plume]

Didn't want to dox anyone, the house next to it, had one of those nice weather stations on the roof.

[stable helm]

hello everyone 👋🏼 brand new to meshtastic, just got a node for myself and my parents set up yesterday. we’re in the western part of the east valley. i’m kind of a n00b at radio but hoping we can eventually get a node placed on a mountain over here somewhere so we can get the places behind the mountains connected to the rest of the valley better. right now i think others can see my node location, do i have to worry about my node location doxing me? like will anything bad happen

[dense sonnet]

If your primary channel is set with an alternative encryption key they you should be okay, https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/tips/#not-sharing-your-location

Nothing bad happens with sharing locations, unless that’s someone’s motive, usually people use approximate location on the secondary channel to allow people to see there’s a node in the area but not the exact location.

[slim oak]

Has anyone done any range testing from Mt. Wrightston in southern AZ?

[wraith shale]

not yet, but I've been wanting to! There's a 300km+ line of sight from there up to Horse Mountain (near Crown King, south of Prescott) that'd break the land-to-land record for meshtastic

(and a different shorter one that's an easier hike at both ends that would still break the record between Mt. Bigelow north of Tucson up to Mt. Union south of Prescott, but)

[slim oak]

Ah I was looking at trying to reach the phx area. 300km would be insane.

Mt. Wrightston is in my back yard I’ve been up there a few times

[wraith shale]

yeah. I think phoenix area should be possible, that 300km line goes right over it haha. We see nodes from phoenix from the top of Mt. Lemmon some already (there's a node up there, put up there by someone not in this discord)

#1196927616700133486 message prior message on the topic of that long LoS

what're your nodes? if Wrightson is right in your backyard you're possibly reaching the Tucson-area mesh already

[slim oak]

That’s something that I wanted to ask about, other than the risk of having a node stolen or vandalized, are there any issues with leaving a solar node up on mt wrightston peak?

[wraith shale]

getting permission to install a node is the answer there, basically

the one on Lemmon is among other radio equipment, installed on a tower

the issue is less with theft and a lot more with not getting us as users or as the project in trouble due to leaving things lying around on public land 🙂

[slim oak]

Yeah to my surprise I picked up a few Lora contacts and several MQTT when I stepped out my house

[wraith shale]

I'm not sure what the situation is as far as radio stuff in the Santa Ritas at present, though I don't think there's any right on Mt. Wrightson directly

[slim oak]

My nodes are WB_A and HT_A

I’m still rocking stock antennas at the moment

[wraith shale]

seems I'm not seeing you yet, but I'm probably a ways north of you

[slim oak]

Im in Sahuarita

Sahuarita rd and country club

Eventually I’ll have a solar wisblock setup at least 20’ off the ground

[wraith shale]

nice. I know there's a few nodes down there. Not sure if there's reliable connections to the main Tucson mesh yet -- most likely connections would probably be vail/corona de tucson area, a couple things south of the base, and there's a few nodes downtown. unless you can see the mt. lemmon node from there, which is possible too, heh

[slim oak]

It looks like I picked up one of your nodes

[wraith shale]

ha, always funny which nodes show up first. that's the one that's sitting inside the house

[slim oak]

I can see that I can filter out mqtt, and was playing around with that yesterday, but today everything is showing up as a Lora contact

[wraith shale]

we don't generally have too much use of MQTT around here (at least not for communication -- I use it for external integration but that's different), though I think xchak might use it and they're down near you

[slim oak]

So if I don’t have WiFi enabled and my nodes aren’t networked, I should not be seeing any mqtt contacts, correct?

[wraith shale]

not exactly -- if another node near you has MQTT enabled and downlinking, they could still forward a packet from a node over MQTT and you might see it

with "ignore MQTT" on you shouldn't get any, though older firmware versions don't work with that (but I don't know of anyone on old firmware downlinking from MQTT in the area)

there's also the MQTT client proxy, which, if you're using it, means the node can connect to MQTT via the phone client, but you'd still need to have MQTT enabled of course

[slim oak]

That makes sense Thanks for that explanation I’ll have to find that “ignore MQTT” slider in settings

[wraith shale]

yeah. should be under LoRa settings, I believe

[cold plume]

Welcome to the madness.

Stuck a node in router-client on Shaw. The guy I wanted to be able to hit it @gilded jacinth can't see it, but a bud of mine down the 51 and 101 can see it and says it is healthy.

[slim oak]

for those that are running solar powered nodes, have You had any heat related issues with your equipment?

[cold plume]

Not that I know of, but it hasn't gotten hot yet.

[wraith shale]

So far no for me as well, but the highest temp reading I've gotten is only about 120°, probably will get higher as summer goes on

[cold plume]

No nodes in yuma, but sat reception is great!

[cold plume]

Damn, I killed the chat, again!

[dreamy pumice]

In North Phoenix, up a couple days. New nodes are slowly coming in as I decide what I want to do, but having trouble getting responses and acks.... do we have a separate discord?

[spark acorn]

I don’t see too many up there. Me currently=

[golden hornet]

@dreamy pumice what is the callsign of your radio?

[dreamy pumice]

Red1 or 5c60

[golden hornet]

I got your message at midnight.

I didn't respond because I didn't see it until 9am

[dreamy pumice]

No no problem. I work a weird schedule. I am trying to figure out the ack and retransmit stuff still I guess. What is your call sign?

[golden hornet]

Highdrag. My gps is off, so I'm not on the map right now

I was in Buckeye when I got your message though

[dreamy pumice]

That’s pretty impressive. I guess I expected more chatter on the public channel, but my goal is to establish a mesh in the north valley that I can hit home from work

[spark acorn]

I don’t see either of those in my list. I’m in Gilbert.

[dreamy pumice]

I’ve seen usery pass pop up, but not sure I can reach that far with portable nodes without gaining some elevation or better antennas.

[dreamy pumice]

What is your call sign?

[spark acorn]

Short name. GSG

the one with house emoji is my main.

I just sent a test out with your call signs

[dreamy pumice]

Didn’t see it come through

[cold plume]

@dreamy pumice I sent you a direct earlier and tried to reach ya in long fast.

I see you in my list, 3 hops away at 5.06v. 👀

[golden hornet]

If you change the mode (long/fast to short/fast) you'll be changing the frequency, so if the recipient is not on the same channel, they won't receive the message

[dreamy pumice]

Weird, it didn’t come through. I just setup a new node, that I have at work. I’ll see if anyone pops up today.

[dreamy pumice]

What’s your call sign?

[cold plume]

Red1 or 5c60

[dreamy pumice]

Yeah, I have Red2 on me in north Phoenix now. 5440

[cold plume]

Not seeing that one

[slate spindle]

I've heard you Paul. I sent you an ACK but haven't heard back. I'm in N. Peoria at BlueSky Meshtastic network with 10 nodes up.

BS0-BS11 depending on what I'm working on.

4 Helltecs, 4 WISbangs, and 2 Lilygos.

.... and they're mating.🫨

[dreamy pumice]

Ha

[slate spindle]

Next, I'm building a 7 el yagi with attached node. Portable.

If you need to environmental test these nodes Arizona is the place. I had a WIS and a Heltec reach 160F.

They and their 18650s are still alive but might have experienced a decrease to their MTBF.

[cold plume]

Hmmm, we've probably acked at least 1 or 2 times. Not the most reliable comms but interesting either way. The Tucson meshers have some pretty good coverage. Sent out a test near 3 Points and got 5 or so acks. I have 3 temp/humidity modules hit the mail system from rokland today. Interested to see what my mobiles are experiencing temp wise.

[cold plume]

I see BS2 and 4 but no info being received other than them showing up on my list.

[slate spindle]

Oh yeah, I have their Primary channel encrypted so my telemetry stays local. My public channel is Secondary. 10 nodes can squawk a lot and I don't want to load that traffic onto the public grid.

Same with GPS chirps.

BS4 is my best node for reaching out. It is a WIS on solar power and an 8db (maybe it is) vertical helium antenna. But, my HOA keeps the elevation of the roof so it's barley above fence height.

[dreamy pumice]

Is there a guide available for what true public channel settings are here?

[steep harness]

Just the default settings

[slate spindle]

yes

[dreamy pumice]

Ok. Freq slot 20 and let it go?

[slate spindle]

That's the magic bullet.

[steep harness]

Only need to set that if you’re not using the primary channel but a secondary one. Otherwise that’s already the default.

[slate spindle]

What do you want to do @dreamy pumice?

[dreamy pumice]

I’d like to be able to comm back and forth between home and work, ASU west and Deer Valley AMC area.

A previous mesh I played with required ownership of all nodes. Would be interesting to see what was already in place

I got into 2m ham for a while and really enjoyed mapping repeaters and such

Also to see what everyone else is doing for fun

[slate spindle]

Correct me, If your nodes share the same encryption then they are in the mesh together.

and channel name.

[dreamy pumice]

Yes, but on the mesh I used before, pre-Meshtastic, you could only communicate with your own nodes

[slate spindle]

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/tips/#creating-a-private-primary-with-default-secondary

[steep harness]

That’s correct if you want to communicate on that channel. Only the lora settings need to match to mesh.

[dreamy pumice]

Thank you

[slate spindle]

I love Farscape @steep harness 😊

[steep harness]

Me too! Obviously 😆

[dreamy pumice]

@slate spindle what do you do with your mesh?

[slate spindle]

Radio fun in retirement. It's for prepping.

We may need it someday. Soon.

[cold plume]

Me too, ultimately

[slate spindle]

After I'm done experimenting most nodes are going into a Faraday can.

I'm letting the tech mature before I archive the radios.

[cold plume]

Anyone north phx see 007 solar not stirred node?

[dreamy pumice]

Not right now. I-17 Yorkshire

[dreamy pumice]

Same except for retirement.

[cold plume]

Nice 32miles away from me.

[slate spindle]

Yes, I have in N. Peoria.

When I see a test, ping, or sometimes a new node I try and ACK them but seldom get a reply.

[golden hornet]

I'm pinging now

[slate spindle]

I have buzzers in a couple of nodes now to alert me more quickly.

[cold plume]

007 is on Shaw, hoping to bridge a gap.

[golden hornet]

@cold plume ack

[cold plume]

Good thx

007

[slate spindle]

Doh!

[cold plume]

Doubles as security light on one of my cell sites.

Doh! ?

[slate spindle]

Nice! Is that on Shaw Butte?

[cold plume]

Yes

You got 1 there?

[slate spindle]

I believe I have LOS to Shaw 900 amateur repeater.

[cold plume]

Ahh

[slate spindle]

No. My node is in my backyard.

Guarded by the HOA.😼

[cold plume]

I hear ya.

I have los to Shaw but can't see 007.

I see BS0, 1, 2 and 5

[cold plume]

I have an attic so I get some height but with obstruction.

[cold plume]

TD00 if you are here, check your voltage. Seems a tad high.

[dreamy pumice]

@cold plume I want to copy your solar node. For the HOA.

[cold plume]

Ok, will reach out to you via DM in a bit.

These are the parts.

[dreamy pumice]

So it’s pretty much a solar light with a bec and a wisblock right?

[cold plume]

Yes sir, no special charge controller because the light has a built in controller

[dreamy pumice]

I like that. They may end up with one on the roof at work

[cold plume]

Trimmed out the excess plastic in the battery case so the wisblock fits snuggly also dremeled out the usb side just in case.

Snagged the wisbloc with a ziptie, and RTVd the batt case to the solar housing. I did have to some some trimming in the solar housing if I remember correctly.

It's my 007 node on Shaw. Not sure if you said you see that one in node list.

Had issues with the light coming on and off every 15 seconds but then found out I had it too close to my trailer. Moved it away and light only came on when it sensed motion.

I don't like folding these antenna because it ups the swr but didn't have a choice due to the solar panel.

[dreamy pumice]

I haven’t seen 007 yet, but I have LoS to Shaw. How did you sneak a node up there?

I wonder if we could 3D print an sma mount that would make the antenna vertical without the bend.

[cold plume]

I manage a ton of cell sites.

[cold plume]

That would be a great idea.

I made an offer in the beginning of coming to this sub. If you make it, I will try to place it. Got no responses so I kinda abandoned the offer.

[dreamy pumice]

That would be very cool. Magnetic solar node on a tower

[cold plume]

Man it is a no no on the towers themselves but I can place them in componds.

This is where 007 is probably could use a better antenna. From reports I have gotten from users able to see 007, it is staying healthy, charge wise.

[dreamy pumice]

Fair enough. What’s the call sign for 007? I’m home and upstairs. Can try to hit from asu west

[cold plume]

That is a great question, Solar not Stirred is it's name. Standby.

d157

[dreamy pumice]

Im just getting max retransmission reached from long fast

[cold plume]

Ahh, you ios users get that alot I think.

[dreamy pumice]

lol.

[cold plume]

I've not seen anything like that on android. Android cares about our mental well-being . 😂

[torpid leaf]

iOS shows all the various ack errors from the firmware, on android it is a cloud with a strike through

[cold plume]

Darn you android, the truth comes out. Thx for explaining that.

I do really like the ios layout better though. From the screenshots I have seen anyway.

I even bought a cheap ios tablet only to find out the os didn't support the current meshtastic version.

[ember tree]

Curious how the outdoor nodes are fairing in this heat, anyone having issues? I have kept mine inside in fear of burning them up.

[golden hornet]

@ember tree mine is in a black pelican on the roof of my truck. It's been going non-stop for 3 months now

[ember tree]

Well I probably couldn't find a toastier of a situation than that if I tried so that's reassuring. Thanks.

[golden hornet]

My lipo battery will fail long before the radio does

[cold plume]

My mobile in black case. Ordered a temp module to track temps inside. Will let ya know.

Well that is 1 of my mobiles the other in a white pelican but not sure color makes a difference much in AZ sun.

[slate spindle]

My original solar node hit 160F when ambient was 98F. I documented this with graphs and pics in #enclosures. My solution came from space telescope tech. I put a reflective shroud over it and dropped the internal temp by 60F. You could install your shroud UNDER you solar panel.

The low tech parts were a plastic food container top covered with Aluminum foil shiny side up.😅

And I didn't' have to do a space walk to install it.

I'm also using Alpha antennas and those very magnets for other installations i.e. mobile. I put a solar panel on my truck's roof using those magnets.

[cold plume]

Interesting info.

[cold plume]

By chance got a pic?

I mean I guess I could scroll and search.....😉

[slate spindle]

Search on my uname and solar.🥸

[wraith shale]

#enclosures-discussion message still came up pretty quickly for me, guessing that's what you were thinking of?

[slate spindle]

Discord must have updated recently because I search in here almost daily.

[steep harness]

Search is much better now actually.

Used to be terrible

[slate spindle]

Sure, but now thousands of users must learn a new workflow.

[steep harness]

It’s really not all that different, at least in my opinion.

Change is good, especially when it takes something unusable to actually usable lol.

[slate spindle]

MS are experts at this.

[steep harness]

🤦🏻‍♂️

Moving on, I suppose.

[slate spindle]

Wait til you see my yagi with built in node and 18650s and enclosure.😎

[cold plume]

I guess I was expecting to see install type pics. So you just cut it to the size of the panel, glued it down then the panel on top?

[slate spindle]

I implied it was space science but that's my fantasy. In reality yes, I sized the plastic cover to my enclosure and hot glued it together and wrapped AL foil on the top avoiding the antennas. The mast is a broken telescoping aluminum pool net I bolted the enclosure onto. Held up with an old camera tripod that is weighted on each leg with lead scuba weights left over from my cold water diving days. All very professional /s.

My HOA would not allow roof antennas so this one is barley over the fence line but I"m working on a terracotta roof tile with a RAK and solar panel built in .(patent pending)

[cold plume]

Good stuff, thx for sharing.

[cold plume]

@slate spindle check dm when you wake up

[dreamy pumice]

Sorry if I polluted long fast with a range test guys. Didn’t realize I turned it on and got called away to dad stuff.

[cold plume]

Didn't notice

[slate spindle]

Your golden. I didn't notice either. The way I see it if there is no emergency or channel is quiet I'd say just do it. We need to test our mesh and it's limits.

[dreamy pumice]

Threw an 8bi mag mount on the car to see if I do any better today range wise.

[cold plume]

Outcome?

[dreamy pumice]

I felt cool, but didn’t see a big difference.

[golden hornet]

How long was your feedline?

[cold plume]

Sometimes looking cool is all that matters.

[dreamy pumice]

True.

[cold plume]

Were you in an area that you are sure are alot of nodes? Sometimes it's "just like that", is this even working?

And if running around in the city trying to pick up nodes, good luck with that.

[cold plume]

Not pretty but betting temps drop. Will be separating the antenna bulkhead area as I am positive a ton of heat gets transferred into the box due to it being metal. 2 temp/humidity modules arriving Monday. Will be testing 1 box with and 1 box without the thermal barrier.

[cold plume]

Perhaps there is hope. Disregard my batt power, deliberately doing a discharge.

[dreamy pumice]

Anyone have issues with radios shutting down? A t-deck and a Heltec v3 both seem to randomly shut down on me.

[golden hornet]

@dreamy pumice my Rak just did today, had to powercycle it. I don't have any serial logs to tell me why though.

[cold plume]

Had a Rak UNSET on its own yesterday.

[dreamy pumice]

Just worried about power cycling or unsettling on a high placement node

[cold plume]

First instance of it happening though. On another awhile back, blutooth just stopped connecting.

Is yours doing complete power cycles or shitting down?

Nvm just read complete shutdown.

[golden hornet]

I have a repeater on a mountain that unset itself 4 hours after deployment. Haven't been up there to fix it yet.

My mobile unset itself after 40 days of continuous use.

Both are the same version of software. I've been told there is a corruption in the core memory from the FW.

I'll update FW this week, and recover the repeater in a couple months when the nope ropes settle down

[cold plume]

LoRa Gremlins.

[dreamy pumice]

Power cycling seems to limited to one device. Wondering if that’s a software or hardware issue.

How many of you are running private mesh for your own needs, and what are your preferences for that setup

[bitter dock]

Hello form Marana... bough my first MT rigs about two years ago, and there was no one else really using them... repurposed a few radios for R Nodes and just recently flashed a couple of the old MT devices to see how active it has gotten... looks like times have changed 🙂

[wraith shale]

We've got a fairly decent mesh down here around Tucson these days 😄

[cold plume]

On South Mountain, not planting a node yet but anyone seeing any kind of jump in nodes seen?

[cold plume]

Ok, changed my mind. Dropped a node on SM.

[steep harness]

With permission I hope?

[cold plume]

Pffft

It's my towet

Tower*

East and west lit up

[steep harness]

Okay, good.

[cold plume]

On the roof not tower

Of our shelter

Hope it helps

1 of the local ham guys is up there once or twice a week

[steep harness]

Gotcha! I just wanted to make sure it wasn't just dropping a random device wherever. We'd likely see some news article in few weeks lol

[cold plume]

Understood

Remember, I told you that I manage a shit ton on cell sites all over Az. Well everything south of 60

South Phoenix to yuma Nogales to New Mexico

[steep harness]

Yeah, I didn't put two and two together there. Sorry just wanted to be sure

[cold plume]

All good

[steep harness]

I'll check my device here in a bit and see if there's anything new popping up

[cold plume]

It's in client at the moment but that can change. Ham guy gonna tend to it.

[steep harness]

Who placed this one? 👀 That’s where I went to HS lol

[cold plume]

Started showing up 2 or 3 days ago

I see your mobile on my list.

[steep harness]

Yeah, I just realized it was dead lol.

[cold plume]

No wonder I got max retrans cloud thing.

[open ravine]

pretty good!

[cold plume]

Tucson is Thick!

[cold plume]

What is the best magnetic whip for mesh mobile?

[rain horizon]

Jumped a few times today with a rak kit in the tracker mode today. With a 10 second location broadcast.

[cold plume]

Cool

[rain horizon]

TUS—PHX bridge is coming along.

The Pinal peak isn’t actually there. It will be there I think tomorrow.

[steep harness]

I think there was someone on a flight earlier which is why it bridged.

[open ravine]

The testing that has been done with that unit has shown promise for hitting you guys

Let me grab the viewshed

[steep harness]

I feel like bridging now is going to cause issues considering how large the meshes have gotten.

[steep harness]

Not even showing what's over on the west side either.

[open ravine]

It shouldn't. It'll be an added few hops between mainland phx and mainland tus

[steep harness]

As we get closer to 300, it likely will. We're up over 100 and that's not including the west side. What are you folks at down there?

[open ravine]

We're also potentially planning some filtering on the link

We're at around 250

[steep harness]

Oof.

I guess we'll see

[open ravine]

Our chutil is still manageable, we coordinate our stuff pretty well

[dense sonnet]

Not sure if this gives any sort of idea, I’m in the surprise area seeing about 317 nodes in the last 2 weeks.

[open ravine]

Good spread! Is that fully meshed? @dense sonnet

We had trouble for a while getting our west and east side connected reliably

[dense sonnet]

As far as no mqtt?

[rain horizon]

I was in a AC around that time with some trackers.. like 13k AGL.

[open ravine]

We don't use MQTT for inter-node comms down here- just for metrics reporting

Figure it kinda ruins the fun

[dense sonnet]

Nothing of mine is on mqtt, should be all fully over Meshtastic. Don’t see anyone over mqtt at the moment on my node list either but could be some older firmware nodes in the mix

[steep harness]

Oh nice, you have a good connection with the easy valley too. I don't have anything west or north where I'm at.

[dense sonnet]

It’s definitely getting better as more nodes go up, Have not been able to get any traceroute off to see the route but hear most messages on long fast it seams from down there

[open ravine]

You guys grew fast!

Even faster than us from what I can tell, adjusting for the difference in population ofc

Great work 😁 👍

[dense sonnet]

It’s definitely growing fast, I remember having trouble seeing more than 20 nodes back in February. I think it’s definitely attributed to some of the better placed nodes, we seem to have a lot more solar nodes in the higher spots popping up around here getting everyone bridged

[open ravine]

Yeah, same happened for us

[dense sonnet]

Which I greatly appreciate for those in here

[open ravine]

We had some solid connection going, but when the Mt. Lemmon node came up things really got going

[dense sonnet]

That is definitely an awesome spot for a node

Did anyone else see the united message? First air test I’ve seen

[open ravine]

Yeah, next big one's going up on a big building on the south-ish side, which should cover most of the shadows of mt. lemmon. very exciting

we've also got a couple downtown, and on some outlying mountains that do some good work too.

And then the biosphere 2 node, still chugging along. Not much up in that area but it does get a signal quite far 😁

[keen aurora]

I'm real excited for a Mt. Lemmon node.

[dense sonnet]

Maybe that will give me a reason to finally make the trip down to see the biosphere

[golden hornet]

The mesh will probably break soon 😂

We're gonna need a frequency coordinator

[cold plume]

This was grabbed on Tuesday? I see it is time stamped Friday but my RM24 node showing in Scottsdale has not been in that area since Tuesday and the RMB node was renamed to South Mountain Phx on Tuesday as well.

[dense sonnet]

No just grabbed yesterday at that time and filtered for the last 2 weeks to filter off nodes not seen again

Looks like I have not heard anything from south mountain since you left

[cold plume]

Ham guy was supposed to looking after it, maybe he killed it.

[steep harness]

57 mile direct connection. Nice!

[spark acorn]

did my responses to him come up? GSG

Feel like I get a lot more than I can get out message wise and

[steep harness]

Don’t think I saw yours

[spark acorn]

just responded to your WOW text from a little bit ago

[steep harness]

Don’t see a reply. Unless you sent hello world?

[steep harness]

Ah. No, did not get that.

[spark acorn]

just sent you a direct DM on mesh as test

[steep harness]

No dm either.

[spark acorn]

Dang it

[steep harness]

My node isn’t in the best location at the moment, could be part of it. Not sure

[open ravine]

Pinal just went up and it looks like contact was made!

[cold plume]

Not sure how much difference it makes, Dave you have a fairly long signature type message being sent out with each of your responses.

[dreamy pumice]

Is Mountain on here? I keep discovering the node, but no response, and no location

[cold plume]

Never buying 18650s again.

[cold plume]

Looking for guidance on installing the 12500 gnss module on the 4631. I've got it in slot, enabled in the Position tab, just need to be pointed in the right direction to make it operational. Thanks in advance.

[steep harness]

Which slot? Needs to be in Slot A.

Once it's in slot a, it's pretty much plug in play. Just make sure you have GPS set to enabled in the position config (might be by default, not sure).

[cold plume]

In slot a sir

And enabled

[wraith shale]

if it's still giving issues at that point, sometimes it just takes a while to get a first fix, but it's also worth checking the antenna's pointed the right way (ceramic block should face upwards) and the bit of cord for the antenna usually works better if it doesn't cross directly over the GPS chip

[cold plume]

Ok will let her sit for awhile, thanks guys.

[cold plume]

That was the ticket, it's spying sats now.

[cold plume]

Cam someone check see if node on South Mountain is on node map? Node name SMP. Thx

[dense sonnet]

Does look like it has showed back up on my map, still waiting on node info. Pinal airpark coming in loud and clear. Looks like the bridge is working well.

[cold plume]

Cool cool, had to swap the radio.

[rain horizon]

Not sure what happened but I had to reinstall the firmware on the device to see it on Bluetooth.

[dense sonnet]

That’s quite odd, what version are you running at the moment?

[rain horizon]

It was 2.3.11 from the stable side. It’s now 2.3.12

[slate spindle]

Of course I have just updated 5 nodes to 2.3.11.🤣 One of them is back on it's pole.

[dreamy pumice]

Is the owner of the Blue Sky network, or the Ghost Mesh on here?

[cold plume]

New/old node up. MetA. Had to leave other radio on south mountain as SMP

[dreamy pumice]

Showing 54%

[cold plume]

Youch steady drop. Thx buddy

[dreamy pumice]

Sure. Sorry. Meant to dm

[cold plume]

No biggie

[slate spindle]

Hello, still there Paul? Been busy upgrading and reconfiguring 10 nodes to 2.3.12🤣.

Oh, and toss a cheeseburger in there too.

[cold plume]

Still on South Mountain? Nah. Man, that is alot of nodes.

[slate spindle]

Cooler than down here I bet.

[cold plume]

The node up there would disagree.

[slate spindle]

I unwillingly temperature tested a RAK to 160F cycle to 80F for 3 days until I covered it and it stayed up. How hot is yours?

[cold plume]

You forget to turn the burner off or something? I have not paid attention the past few days to be honest.

[slate spindle]

I'm thankful the RAKs are a breeze to upgrade.

[shell cypress]

I'm running into this same issue. I can see a node that shows 1 hop and I receive the messages from that node but when I respond, they don't receive it. I'm at a loss as to why that is happening.

[cold plume]

Well, lost another rak over the night so a little frustrated myself.

[dreamy pumice]

This is kinda typical radio propagation stuff. Improve height or antenna. Just because you can receive well doesn’t mean you have the height or line of sight to send back.

[cold plume]

Anyone got a recent hit on SMP South Mountain PHX? My last was 2138 last night.

[golden hornet]

@cold plume 5 hours ago

[cold plume]

Healthy?

[cold plume]

Thank you Sir.

[golden hornet]

I tried to ping it and got no response

[cold plume]

Thx for trying

This heat and crappy air quality might be messing with our comms a bit today.

Can't see any of our mountains.

[wraith shale]

looks like I finally saw SMP down here in Tucson about 16 hours ago. I've never gotten a successful traceroute north of Marana so I doubt I'd get one to it on a good day, but thought I'd at least report seeing it haha

[cold plume]

Appreciate it.

The Ham told me he would be on South Mountain at least once a week had yet to go up.

[steep harness]

Seeing a bunch of new devices, which is great! But, I'm also seeing a lot of devices using either the router or router_client. Please make sure if you are using this role, your device is in an actual advantageous location where it makes sense to use it. Otherwise, it could be hurting the network. It is very unlikely we need 40 devices setup as routers.

[rain horizon]

Pinal Airpark is setup as router. It’s out here by itself on a 50ft tower. I can change it if needed

[steep harness]

That would be one that makes sense to be set as router

[slate spindle]

I hear Pinal AP in N. Peoria but traceroute fails.

[steep harness]

There's a very good chance this is a result of all the routers that are setup.

[rain horizon]

Whats your node?

[slate spindle]

BS1 - BlueSky One

[rain horizon]

I have a new node in the building next to Pinal. Once I hear yours I’ll try to trace route from my end

[slate spindle]

Most of my nodes are set to 5 hops except one WIS set to 8 hops. All clients.

BS1-BS10

[steep harness]

There's really no need to set them above the default of 3 hops.

Unless it's a very specific edge case where it's needed to reach a specific node. Most of the time, higher hops hurts the network more than it helps.

[slate spindle]

My public channel is a Secondary so all my telemetry is local. The only chirps that would go 8 hops are DMs or traceroutes or public channel which is rare. Please correct me.

This is all a big experiment network.

[wraith shale]

if you're on the same frequency slot, the hops still affect everyone else just the same

though honestly, down here in Tucson I've found that 3 hops definitely doesn't work. everything wants to go via far-away nodes which are often on the opposite end of town, so the things that actually go through usually go back and forth across town repeatedly, via a lot of hops. probably needs improvement to the placement & setup of nodes and/or to algorithms

[slate spindle]

I concur.

[wraith shale]

(though: badly placed nodes being set to router is part of this, so, y'all improve on that bit)

(not aimed at anyone specific, just it's a general issue)

[slate spindle]

I have no routers. All Clients. HOA restricted so no premium placements. But, I did order a weather balloon.😉

🎈

[rain horizon]

It would be nice if there was a way to exclude bad routers because it seems like right now someone could just setup a bunch of garbage and there isn’t much that could be done about it.

[slate spindle]

Yes, it's the wild wild west out there.

[rain horizon]

I did swap Pinal airpark to a bandit nano, so hopefully the 1w helps maybe??

[slate spindle]

I tried Client/router mode months ago and it did not help my network so I run client mode now.

So you're in ham mode?

I'm not familiar with the Bandit Nano. I need mo money.🤠

[steep harness]

1W is legal without a license

[rain horizon]

The bandit nano is cheap but has its limitations because it’s not purpose built for Meshtastic.

[cold plume]

Hate to butt in but, on the Supreme, what is this connector used for?

[steep harness]

Can be used for WiFi/by but likely needs one of those little resistors next to it moved first.

[cold plume]

Ah ok, amd where might the bt antenna be on this bugger? It connects to bt just fine but cannot find it.

[steep harness]

I’m not sure I don’t have one.

[wraith shale]

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0617/7190/7253/files/T-BEAM-S3Core_600x600.jpg?v=1685353045 it's right next to the ipex connector, little ceramic one

[steep harness]

Very neat

[golden hornet]

Can't BT share the same antenna as Wi-Fi?

[wraith shale]

yes, it usually does on esp32s (and it does here)

[cold plume]

I had seen that graphic but it called out wifi. Thank you.

[wraith shale]

yeah, that's fair. same antenna for an esp32, same radio and everything

[cold plume]

It is a power hog

The supreme

[cold plume]

I know, if it ain't broke don't fix it, but theoretically I could connect external bt ant to increase bt range, yes?

[wraith shale]

I'm not 100% sure, but probably you can do so by connecting to that ipex connector and moving a resistor. you'd definitely want to find documentation on what resistor to move and if that actually works, though

[cold plume]

True, gonna leave it, thanks both of you.

[shell cypress]

I would normally agree with you but something tells me that isn't the entire story but maybe part of it. If the node that is 41 miles from me is reported as two hops from me, then I have to imagine that this info tells me that the route my outgoing message might be routing in a way that it is too many hops. So maybe because this other node is on the outskirts, so from less congestion into a congested part of the mesh, and therefore it isn't getting "lost" in the mesh before it hits my node. There really isn't a way to tell. The current info being given by the other node tells me something else is likely playing a significant role.

[shell cypress]

Are you saying router/client setting is also a cause of issues the same way router is an issue? If this is the case, then maybe something can be recommended to the devs about Store/Forward requiring the unit being set to Router/Client. Thats why my base station nodes are set to that. I'm also curious why router stops the traceroute feature from working? Does it not allow the node to pass along certain info?

[dreamy pumice]

I’m also wondering how many of my long distance connections are a direct result of Mqtt and how that plays into counts.

[shell cypress]

It's a good question. I have the "ignore mqtt" setting selected so I'm not sure.

[dreamy pumice]

I do too, but I’m getting hits from Prescott and buckeye in north Phoenix.

[shell cypress]

It is possible. But hits are one thing and actual delivered messages are another.

[wraith shale]

router/client is identical to router as far as rebroadcasting is concerned, so yeah, those will contribute to the same issues

[steep harness]

Router doesn’t stop the trace route from working, but the effects of too many routers on a network can prevent them from working correctly.

Also, you only really need one router for S&F.

[cold plume]

Well my south mtn router client is pushing up daisies.

[crystal bear]

Agree to this when I was in Tucson. A hop count of 5 seemed to be the spot. Although I saw some bunnies of 7 and wanted to hunt those users down.

[cold plume]

And the client up on Shaw Butte, no idea it's health either.

[cold plume]

Uhoh, what day was this? Just kidding I'm on 3.

I'm in phx but through Tucson a ton.

[crystal bear]

It was the whole week I was out there. I was like 🙄!

[cold plume]

Ah

[crystal bear]

5 hops can get me from San Diego to LA. Anything less is a fail
Granted our node density is greater out here than in AZ right now.

[wraith shale]

a lot of mine in Tucson are set to 7 since 5 wasn't doing anything, haha. But I'm smack in the middle of the node-densest part of town, which I think is hurting more than helping

[cold plume]

You have coords, start collecting nodes. 🤣

[wintry vault]

I’m learning this the hard way, I can pick up 150+ nodes but can’t seem to get acks

[cold plume]

You can be seeing 150 online and connected to just a handful of those where only a handful of connected are monitoring.

How many does it say you are "connected" to?

This is encouraging. 122 miles away.

[shell cypress]

Thank you for the clarification

[shell cypress]

What characteristics of the "router" mode creates negative effects on the mesh and what are the negative effects?

[steep harness]

It’s not the role itself but the overuse of the role

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/tips/

We just updated that yesterday

It had good info

[wraith shale]

Just to be very specific/detailed, heh: router/repeater modes rebroadcast others' messages a.) strictly before clients do, b.) within a smaller set of possible time slots, and c.) unconditionally. There's a few effects. The smaller set of time slots means that there's a higher chance of collisions among several router nodes, because they're more likely to choose the same one. The rebroadcasting before clients means that a client that's within range of a router will almost always not rebroadcast the message at all, which is bad if the router's range is about equivalent to the client's, because then, in effect, the client could potentially have gotten the message further (with fewer hops). The unconditional rebroadcasting means that if two routers are close together, then unlike with clients both of them will always rebroadcast (and both of them will therefore prevent clients from rebroadcasting), meaning you can end up with much more channel usage overall for not that much benefit.

[shell cypress]

Thank you very, very much. This is very helpful and understanding the details behind this makes it easier to be able to correctly implement it so that it works better.

[wraith shale]

the ideal case is probably one where every client mostly sees only one router, and each router sees only the nearest other router in each direction (roughly speaking, since we all know RF and LoS are complicated, haha), meaning the routers all have exceptionally good range basically. Very local stuff goes direct or via that one local router, longer distance stuff goes to the local router and then over the longer router-router links

or, in short: mountaintops and big towers, as much as possible 🙂

[shell cypress]

Thanks for the link. I will say though, obviously the way the mesh is being rapidly expanded, the way the website explains things is accurate and sufficient but it isn't everyday language to the non-technical people that are buying nodes. I get the language and can understand to some extent why packet collisions are bad and hop decreases occur with too many router modes, but the type of plain written explanations such as Mian wrote out may go a long way to creating a healthy mesh across the country. Just a thought for a later time as these issues start to become more common as it becomes more popular.

[wintry vault]

I'm not sure I have seen this on the iPhone app.

[cold plume]

Ah ok, for me it shows up as a push notification on my phone.

[wintry vault]

I think I can filter by online, and currently it shows 0 lol, 100 nodes total atm

[cold plume]

Default settings?

Did you buy an after market antenna? If so make sure you didn't put an RP antenna on your device.

[wintry vault]

I have a 5db Alfa antenna, I just have a lot of stuff around me, lots of building in this complex, I may work on a better antenna placement I just unfortunately can't get on the roof or anything

[cold plume]

Yep this LOS stuff is picky.

[dreamy pumice]

Just drove back from chino valley. Looks like Prescott has some good coverage

[cold plume]

Agreed

[cold plume]

So snagged the South Mountain node today, thinking completely dead, didn't even open to troubleshoot. Brought it home opened it up, pressed a button and it woke up.

What would make it is go deep sleep like that?

[torpid leaf]

What device? Only esp32 does deep sleep.

[cold plume]

T echo. But it seemed to have just dropped out of the network. Needs a couple firmware updates as well.

[cold plume]

Took a mobile node up with me, right next to SMP yet could not see in node list.

[cold plume]

Nodes denied.

[steep harness]

It’ll just erase the olden entry in your nodedb, it’s a rolling database.

[cold plume]

Yeah, I figured that is what was happening. 64/100 kinda impressive in a way.

[glacial otter]

Just wonder if anyone nearby see's my nodes, timsuMeshBase and/or timsuMesh2095

[cold plume]

Not seeing in phx area.

[glacial otter]

hmm, ok

[cold plume]

What area?

[glacial otter]

south gilbert/qc area

[cold plume]

Seeing other nodes?

[glacial otter]

Yeah, both of them seem to be seeing multiple other nodes

[glacial otter]

I don't see either of them here either:

[cold plume]

How long have they been up?

[glacial otter]

Perhaps a few hours

[cold plume]

Oh you just popped.

Sent direct test

[cold plume]

Sent direct, check msgs

[glacial otter]

I don't think i see your messages?

[cold plume]

Hmmm 2 hops away seems sketchy but you should have gotten if true.

Gotta ask, firmware utd, default settings and role client?

Stock antenna?

I see both your nodes

[glacial otter]

Let me take a look (def still learning here :))

[cold plume]

We all started somewhere.

[cold plume]

Anyone seeing this SKYNET out in Cali?

[cold plume]

2 Cali nodes.

[dense sonnet]

Seeing them now too…

Someone’s downlinking mqtt 😦

[steep harness]

Great

[dense sonnet]

It looks like I stopped hearing them around 10 on most of my stuff so maybe it was an accident, not sure if anyone else is starting to see others or still are

[spark acorn]

I do, just DM'ed ya on both

[cold plume]

This one showing in AZ and Cali.

[crystal bear]

So you're saying kn6usn is doing it? I can see if they're in San Diego and ping them. I know Esco Bike Boy is here. But they have the stupid RAK firmware bug.

[glacial otter]

What does downlinking mqtt mean?

[steep harness]

Getting data from MQTT nodes, or non-local ones.

[glacial otter]

when normally you would just get data from directly connected nodes?

[steep harness]

Not necessarily directly connected, just Lora only.

[glacial otter]

ah, interesting. thank you

[cold plume]

Nah, I was just making an observation. Thought 6usn might be traveling then saw a node here as well.

[cold plume]

While disassembling a 2006 era all in one Sony pc, found these antennas. I think I am going to giving them a test run on the BT side of things. Both have ipx connectors, one of them has a 1.5ft lead.

[torpid leaf]

WiFi antenna from the screen?

[cold plume]

Yes. Gonna do a range test in a bit.

[cold plume]

Test failure, probably lost bt range with it lol.

[cold plume]

T144, are you here?

His node pulling in 33 sats, anyone know which antenna is being used?

[steep harness]

What device is it?

[cold plume]

Can't see that on andriod, perhaps starlink?

Standby will check macbook.

[golden hornet]

Probably a real(non-chinese) helical

[cold plume]

Heltec wireless tracker

[steep harness]

Likely the built-in one then. These devices get a very high number of sats because is the gps it uses.

I can get 26 sitting on my desk inside with only one window.

[cold plume]

Nice!

[fleet musk]

Anyone in north Phoenix? I’m thinking of getting a mesh unit and contributing to the community network!

[cold plume]

North Phx needs a few.

[fleet musk]

Cool! I’ll definitely help out

[cold plume]

What general area are you looking?

[fleet musk]

I’m up by desert ridge

I’m actually KK7UAJ-D

And I work downtown daily so I could definitely keep it on me for mobile packet capturing

[fleet musk]

I just bought my first device!!

[dreamy pumice]

Nice. Let us know when you’re up and running, I’m in north Phoenix, in the avenues

[cold plume]

A group member of mine just bought that same node.

[fleet musk]

I passed my ham general just now!

[cold plume]

👍

[steep harness]

Drone 120m up

[golden hornet]

What kind of contacts did you get

A: from the drone
B: on the ground, routed by the drone?

[steep harness]

Couldn't tell you, didn't really pay attention to that. I wasn't connected to the device since it was 120m up, I couldn't get connected. Wasn't really test, more for fun.

[dreamy pumice]

Any GitHub pros willing to walk me through compiling device-ui for a t-deck? I am out of practice and stuck.

[cold plume]

FAA gave you a waiver for night flight?

[golden hornet]

@cold plume don't need one for night

[steep harness]

That's only required for controlled airspace, which this was not.

That hasn't been needed since 2021 too fyi

https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/operations_over_people

[cold plume]

Copy that

[fleet musk]

So I got my device

Do I need an invite to the channel? Or how does this work?

[steep harness]

Nope, most are using the default channel settings as the “public” channel.

[fleet musk]

so no channel needed other than public

[keen aurora]

If you’d like to participate in the “public” channel, you’d set up a channel called “LongFast” and set default encryption and make sure the key shows “AQ==“

Any additional channels are set up for your own use, or use between a group of friends, family, etc. all devices will need channels named the same and have the same encryption key to be able to communicate with each other.

[steep harness]

Only if you are not using the default primary channel -- this is only needed if you are using a custom primary channel and want the default on a secondary channel.

[keen aurora]

^ this. I should not assume everyone sets a custom channel as primary. Thank you for clarifying that.

[serene moon]

Hello, Im currently working on a new meshtastic/freetak plugin, Could I get an invite to the tak server

[golden hornet]

@serene moon if you're working on freetakserver, you should probably join their discord. They left the tak community and struck out on their own. I have nothing to do with them anymore.

[serene moon]

I understand and I appreciate the information! Thank you!

[golden hornet]

@serene moon the main tak discord is here

https://discord.com/invite/CuMWZbh3VY

You can find a link to the fts discord in the fts channel that we have kept open so people can navigate to them.

[serene moon]

Found it thank you!

[keen aurora]

@cold plume I'm not sure if you're getting my responses to you via RM5. I've replied to both your tests.

[cold plume]

I gotten 4 responses, much appreciated. Which node were you?

[keen aurora]

SATT, and SATG, but not sure if my messages from SATG are getting out.

[cold plume]

I got you, and responded.

[keen aurora]

Hmm I've only seen your replies to SATT, I sent one from SATG and haven't gotten any replies yet

[cold plume]

At the bottom of the hill on the side of the mountain now, not getting out.

Try again pls.m

[keen aurora]

I'll try direct

[cold plume]

Got 1 popping up ???

Out of LOS now I think.

Oops west side

[keen aurora]

Yeah I think where you are, is a bit spotty. SGBM has a hard time reaching anyone in Tucson unless they are West of the mountains

[cold plume]

I wish I could leave a node up there.

[keen aurora]

We've been talking about it! His only connection to main Tucson is through Pinal Airpark, and he doesn't seem to always connect to that node

[cold plume]

Crap luck with remotenodes

[keen aurora]

Doesn't look like you got any of my direct messages to RM5, rip

[cold plume]

Nope

[keen aurora]

Just go leave your node up on that mountain for us. Thanks

[cold plume]

Almost back out to work avra valley rd

This setup powered a large dyson yesterday when the power went out on Glendale.

[keen aurora]

@dense sonnet has shared your vehicle build with me. I'm not surprised lol

[dense sonnet]

Paul has a lot of good builds

[cold plume]

Dangit Logan, it was a secret.

🤣

[dense sonnet]

It had to be let out

[cold plume]

There is a 36000mah on Amazon dirt cheap

[keen aurora]

Unfortunately I think there is either an issue with version 2.4.0 comms, or my mobile nodes antenna is poop. No one has responded to my mobile nodes test

SATT is on 2.3.15, and seems to work fine

[cold plume]

GOODaaa Power Bank Wireless Charger 36000mAh Built in 4 Cables Six Outputs 15W Fast Charging Power Bank for All Mobile Devices Three Inputs Solar Portable Charger with Dual Flashlights, Carabiner https://a.co/d/0PYIlD9

[dense sonnet]

Keep that rak goin for monthsss with that

[cold plume]

Gonna get another for the supreme build I am thinking about doing

The solar panel too weak when exhaust fan and radio on to provide full charge.

[cold plume]

Aftermarket antenna?

[dense sonnet]

Heard your message just now out in surprise

[cold plume]

Nice

Still south of pinal airpark

[keen aurora]

Yeah, just a cheap one from Amazon. I'm doing some troubleshooting now

[cold plume]

I run the alfa 915 from Rockland

Got tired of testing

No headaches with the 915

[keen aurora]

Haha, I love trial and error. I wanted to see if there was any decent antennas on amazon. I found these cheap ones for like $11 for a pack of two and they have been working REALLY good, until I updated to 2.3.15 I started seeing some issues

So not sure if the antenna just pooped out, or something firmware related

[cold plume]

Definitely, I love tinkering and testing, I guess I got tired of smh

[cold plume]

She stays put.

[keen aurora]

Hell yeah, very nice!

[cold plume]

And blends in kinda.

[keen aurora]

How many "Sir you left your box ontop of your truck!" have you gotten?

[cold plume]

Man, always somebody "pointing up".

[keen aurora]

Hahah, leave my box alone, weirdo. ITS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE

[cold plume]

Right,

[keen aurora]

I may be looking to do something similar for my truck build. Though I was kind of contemplating trying to figure out a way to replace my radio antenna with the node antenna. I don't listen to the radio anyways. Also was thinking of wiring the power directly into the truck, instead of using solar/backup

[cold plume]

Hell yeah.

That actually sounds like a great idea.

[keen aurora]

Yeah the power thing wouldn't be too hard, and would be nice and protected via fuse, as I was thinking of doing something like an add-a-circuit

Not sure how I'd tackle the antenna replacement. Guess I should figure out where that routes though the firewall, lol

[cold plume]

Now ya got me thinking..... I wish it was the weekend.

[keen aurora]

On your truck it looks like your antenna for the radio is already on the roof, so that's super nice, probably just need to pull down the headliner a bit to access it

If you're willing to sacrifice your radio antenna lol

I have a 2009 Tundra, it's got an old school wire antenna on the passenger front fender

[cold plume]

Same, the fin on the roof is Onstar.

[keen aurora]

Ohh I see your radio antenna now that I looked again, haha

[cold plume]

Couldn't do it to this truck though. My company would object.

[keen aurora]

Ah, yeah not to your work truck. That is where a magnetic power box comes in handy, lol

[cold plume]

Yep

And it is mobile between my personal truck and this one

[keen aurora]

Oh good, looks like my front fender comes off. Guess I have my project for the cooler weather lol

[cold plume]

Nice!

107 in the box at the moment.

It hit 136 awhile back prior to installing the exhaust fan.

[keen aurora]

Phew, 107 ain't bad!

[cold plume]

Agreed, fairly sure the radio side would be ok at the higher temps but was concerned about the power bank.

[cold plume]

Maybe not the place and sorry if the Gods get displeased. Any PHX area peeps want to meet up on a monthly basis and train? Or if there are established groups looking for members let me know. DM is best.

[steep harness]

Does anyone here own this group? https://www.facebook.com/groups/1152520662870006

It needs to be updated to distinguish it as a community group as well as using the logo in a secondary position. https://meshtastic.org/docs/legal/licensing-and-trademark/#social-media

[cold plume]

Not me, divorced FB in 2012.

[ember tree]

Anyone else getting connection to a node in Hawaii as of 2 hrs ago? Showing as KK7JXG.

I would assume it's an MQTT connection getting relayed to me from another node?

[wraith shale]

that HAM callsign appears to map to Gilbert, so the location might just be wrong

just flew back home from a vacation and haven't updated it or such

[dense sonnet]

😦

seeing more and more pop up and can’t seem to tell where they are coming from

[steep harness]

Are you connected to mqtt?

[dense sonnet]

Nope

Just turned on ignore mqtt as well

[dense sonnet]

that solved that just sucks other nodes are waisting airtime if I understand stuff right, mqtt labels were showing on the nodes too

[glass lodge]

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/tips

[golden hornet]

Who dis?

I was out of town for the weekend and cleared my db. This guy popped up in Sedona and Cottonwood via 1 hop. Pretty damn good

[spark acorn]

I get tons of nodes and almost 0% ability to communicate with any of them.

So kinda wish I didn’t have 298 nodes in list since last wipe. 2 -3 weeks ago.

It gives false hope.

Just got 1 more. So 299

[golden hornet]

Use private PSK

No reason to use the public channel if you have friends

[dense sonnet]

What’s your antenna situation look like? Digipeater seems constantly gets coms into Tucson.

[keen aurora]

Yeah from Tucson we pretty consistently hit South West Mesa.

[steep harness]

@wraith shale Hop maxer!

🤣

[wraith shale]

Yeah, lol, I should really turn those down on most of my stuff. I think things are improving but for a while that's the only way anything got through for me

[steep harness]

@here Poll for everyone. I've seen a few folks complain that they're unable to have conversations and it's due to the number of nodes. In my neck of the woods I'm seeing like 150 but some have claimed to have 300 where they are. I can definitely see LongFast having issues with 300.

[dense sonnet]

Could we in theory change to frequency channel like 19 instead of 20 to keep the good stuff with the longfast preset?

[golden hornet]

Hey everyone, I created a new Arizona specific discord so we can categorize discussions better.

Feel free to join and send me channel suggestions

https://discord.com/invite/smVQFcke

[steep harness]

Isn’t there already one? Or two at this point

[golden hornet]

Not that I'm aware of

If there is, I'll kill my server

[keen aurora]

Hey @golden hornet a few of us from Phoenix and Tucson have been working on this exact thing. Would love to consolidate! Everyone is welcome, and community driven so definitely ears open for suggestions. https://azmsh.com

We also have been working on MQTT and an Arizona mesh map with uplinks from all over Arizona. https://map.azmsh.net

Currently bridged between Phoenix, Mesa, and Tucson

[golden hornet]

Just joined

I'll shut mine down

[latent hearth]

Waiting on my device I'm in North Phoenix area.

[neat ridge]

Hello Arizona, been playing with these for a few months now, I have access to a 13 story building just east of downtown Phoenix that I would like to stick a repeater on. Still working out the details.

[slate spindle]

Why did this room go radio silent? Is the frenzy over?

[golden hornet]

Another discord that is Arizona specific was stood up

Link is above

[slate spindle]

Oh, yeah. I tried that. Never worked for me.

I guess this server has joined weight watchers to trim down.

[golden hornet]

https://discord.gg/amSNEmEH

[spark acorn]

Correct Modes

"It has come to my attention that many of us have our Meshtastic nodes set to the wrong operating mode. This error is causing data handling problems for the local network.
As a general rule, the Router, Repeater, and Router-Client modes should only be used for a node on a mountaintop or other location covering several cities. A node on a tower or rooftop should generally be set to Client mode. Nodes used in the home or vehicles should be set to Client-Mute.

For more information, see this video from the Comms Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htjwtnjQkkE "

copy/paste of email I got from Arizona Mesh Organization, wanted to share

[trim heath]

Hello everyone. New to meshtastic. I just picked up a couple heltec v3’s up in North Phoenix/ Scottsdale areas!

[neat ridge]

Welcome, You can also check us out here! https://azmsh.com/

[trim heath]

I don’t think that link works on mobile ^.^ I’ll jump in the discord when I’m off of work. I appreciate it!

[neat ridge]

No worries, https://discord.gg/qAAgVrrf here is the invite as well.

[steep harness]

Welcome!

[neat ridge]

Welcome Arizona Mesh'ers. Join us over on the AZMSH discord. https://discord.gg/Fpr9WewV

[steep harness]

Also making the move to Medium Fast on a non-default frequency slot. Lots of benefits to this move, anyone serious about wanting to meaningfully contribute to the mesh (which includes a commitment correct roles and recent firmware) should reach out to @dense sonnet @neat ridge or @cold plume for the details.

[wraith shale]

I may as well drop this here, for anyone not in the azmsh discord. zooms 1-13, all of AZ, on USGS topo. Hopefully being seeded by my computer, lol

[cold plume]

We actually had one here, then someone placed 2 routers near. This was before we switched. The good thing is, we still have an open invite to comeback and install in the future. And we can go as high as we want, in it's lowered configuration, if that makes sense, so we can go to the top if we want. @dense sonnet

[steep harness]

That’s sweet! Minus the bozos placing routers near it 😑.

I’m camping at Bartlett again next month.

[cold plume]

Well, they weren't right next to it, and thinking was not done maliciously, but the owners were not reachable and it rendered the node kind of useless it seemed.

[dense sonnet]

CCN V2™️

[cold plume]

Do It!

[dense sonnet]

https://tenor.com/view/bob-the-builder-lots-to-do-a-lot-to-do-work-to-do-stuff-to-do-gif-24817968

[red creek]

Visiting Phoenix

[violet turtle]

Welcome to Az

[torpid leaf]

That app is ancient

[gloomy nebula]

Visiting havasu and Prescott. How’s the mesh around there?

[wraith shale]

Prescott has a pretty active mesh -- they're on default settings while a lot of the rest of the state is using some alternate settings though. no idea about Havasu but haven't seen anyone come by our discord at least

[main wind]

Anybody have a working invite to the azmesh discord? The one azmsh.com points to is dead. Might be worth having a basic landing page there with some info instead of directly linking to a discord invite that will inevitably expire, just my $0.02

[golden hornet]

https://discord.gg/mmnuUSFS5p

[wraith shale]

https://azmsh.net/ is the community site as well, not .com -- I think the .com is still owned by someone in the community though, maybe will see if it can redirect instead of going to a bad discord invite

[dense sonnet]

redirect goes to .net now, it would be nice if discord didn’t kill the invites after a few months

[cosmic glade]

I have am uncle trying to connect in Peoria. Are you on Longfast or have you changed ?? Trying to help him get connected.

[neat ridge]

We are not on long fast any longer. I will send you a DM I see you have joined our discord, I will meet with you there.

[cosmic glade]

Which room?

[neat ridge]

Finish the onboarding so I can see you in the server and then meet me here. https://discord.com/channels/1270431345734062133/1270470799266021538

[cosmic glade]

I went to enter the build info and the page disappeared. Anyway to get back to it?

[plucky acorn]

Hello Arizanolonians, how are yall? Nevada checking in here, do you have any mesh coming into NV yet?

if you want to pop in, we are having our weekly meshup today @ 6

[wraith shale]

hi in another thread, haha. I think some folks up in that corner may have seen small amounts but most of our population and users are more south and central; we're also using a different preset/slot for most of the infra stuff

[plucky acorn]

waht preset are you using?

[wraith shale]

MediumFast, in Phoenix/Tucson/Casa Grande. somewhat mixed success. less populated areas are generally still on defaults

[plucky acorn]

i hear even ShortTurbo works LoS

[plucky acorn]

we're in VC on the meshenvy server if anyone wants to jump on and chat

[plucky acorn]

@wraith shale what's a good destination to aim for in AZ? starting from Reno NV

[wraith shale]

From Reno? I wouldn't be looking at AZ at all admittedly, haha. Pretty sure baymesh already connects as far as Tahoe

[plucky acorn]

i'm looking in all directions. OR, ID, UT, AZ, CA

and wondering where to aim in AZ

[wraith shale]

Northern AZ is also not very full yet. There's a community in Prescott that might still be going strong, and a handful in Flagstaff. Maybe one or two in the Kingman area. All of this would be on LF20. Our "main mesh" on MediumFast is basically greater Phoenix and Tucson plus Casa Grande

our closest MediumFast infra nodes are all basically the north end of Phoenix at the closest

[plucky acorn]

hmm... okay maybe aim for phoenix

[wraith shale]

yeah, potentially. curvature of the earth outdoes mountains pretty fast at that range so would almost certainly need more stuff on our side if it were to ever connect

[open pier]

Hey, Everyone! Thanks for having me! aside from MediumFast what other channel settings/Frequencies/ slots or psk should I have my heltec set to in N.Phoenix to start seeing other nodes? I have driven around, tried different antenne and put an antenna high on a pole on top of my house and I am not seeing anything. I saw a T1000 Seedstudios when I first flashed them but nothing else.

[neat ridge]

Hello, You are welcome to join us on the Arizona Meshtastic Community Discord where we have a ton of knowledgeable folks that are willing to help you get everything setup. Hope to see you there.

[open pier]

I was able to find the settings on your website and implement them. My hang-up was having "Slot" set correctly. It kept automatically reverting to default "0". I matched the rest of the recommended settings as well and I am reaching nodes across the valley!

[open pier]

2

[hearty mortar]

Hey guys, is there somewhere that seems more active than this discord?

I'm new to this. I have a couple heltecs and a solar base station.

I never really got them all up and running outside of the two heltecs on a hiking trip with some family.

[brisk root]

Here's an AZ discord for Meshtastic https://discord.gg/7XEH5ZKT

[viral epoch]

Anyone pick me up near Tucson this week? Messages are often ack'd but I've not had any responses. PS the playground at your zoo is fantastic.

[wraith shale]

I saw one come through in our discord bot but our connectivity hasn't been great lately (you seem to keep visiting when that happens, haha)

[viral epoch]

Only brought a t1000e this trip so I’m not expecting miracles.