US - Utah

[real cedar]

Go for it. Explain roles. Explain how to setup 51. The polite etiquette. I'm avoiding "rules" as it's a hobby you know lol

[prisma saddle]

on it!

[real cedar]

It would be nice to not have to say it this time haha

[prisma saddle]

ha ha.

how many times you said it to me the past week? lol.

happy to help set you up if you want.

[real cedar]

How many times have I got the same things wrong 6 ways from sunday

I say this as I'm typing up proper docs now

[prisma saddle]

cool excited to see

[prime torrent]

@prisma saddle @real cedar you are correct - FS20, which appears to be the default as I haven't messed with that.

And appears to be the wrong one, if I'm understanding you correctly here haha

[leaden crow]

Not wrong per se, but it's the default and it is basically non-functioning along the Wasatch Front because of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htjwtnjQkkE

[prime torrent]

I'll watch it now. Thank you for sharing

[dense basin]

Anyone tried KMR400 which is like a Chinesium knockoff of LMR400 going around Amazon/Aliexpress for like 70 cents a foot? Everyone that tries it says loss and VF tests identical

I ordered a roll for my SDR receiver and 2m/70cm base rig and not sure if I made a mistake or not

[leaden crow]

The only LMR400 cables I have are Aliexpress knockoffs (probably that KMR400). I did test the loss of one a long time ago with my nanoVNA and it was better than any of my other cable.

[dense basin]

Interesting. Well, gonna give it a shot and see! Thanks for the input

[real cedar]

I GOT A LAKE MOUNTAIN on my mesh node list now

[dense basin]

You probably see a handful of new Davis area nodes right about now 😉

[prisma saddle]

ha ha ya i am seeing some. was able to ping the qth one.

from herriman.

[dense basin]

Ah are you JAL-H?

[prisma saddle]

ace mobile

[dense basin]

Ah ace roof got ya

[prisma saddle]

but that is one of mine ya.

yup.

i recall seeing you on fs20 :).

[dense basin]

Yeah I got sick of 20 and am moving my crap over

[prisma saddle]

what kind of client roles you running ?

[dense basin]

CLIENT for my house and truck, MUTE for everything else. The ninja node is a CLIENT I am testing until this weekend before I hike up to Adams Cabin and drop it up there

My truck acts as sort of a relay for my pocket devices whenever I'm out and about

[prisma saddle]

coolio

[dense basin]

I've got one other client ninja node for up above south Ogden probably haven't decided yet

Im not as ambitious about throwing solar nodes on summits as yall but I kinda dig throwing a couple clients up above the Bonneville shoreline near me

Also always open to input, ideas and criticism

[prisma saddle]

and there’s the truck.

[dense basin]

2 hops to Herriman is incredible

[prisma saddle]

ya lol. that’s a working mesh.

for ya.

[dense basin]

Hell yeah

[real cedar]

I did see them. They came through very quickly for me because I'm right under AUR right now getting ready for the 999.

Nearly instantaneous. Just so ya know

I also set up my home node to email me when it's season you know it and give me all the information that can. Since I'm keeping metrics at the moment, don't worry, I'm not trying to keep track of who's who. I'm doing it for metric purposes on the performance of the network because we're trying to expand it.

I mostly did that, so if I'm way down south, I can see what's going on way up north. I'm actually going to expose that once I figure out how to secure it for the web.

So people can at least look at a map or something. I think that would be really cool.

I was thinking of integrating it into the documentation, not sure yet. Lots of ideas, not so much time to work on them at the moment.

[dense basin]

Oh I don't care if you datalog me man, it's all in the name of science. 🙂

You're doing some incredible work!

Also i like the environmental telemetry on that AUR that will be really cool to watch as the seasons pass

[prisma saddle]

ditto.

what ever can improve the process.

[prisma saddle]

as does the ozone.

[pseudo kestrel]

Out of curiosity, did anyone see my (RxBs) message on the general channel?

[dense basin]

Im doing a silly experiment with soil moisture meters around the yard/garden and will set them to MUTE and max hops = 1 lemme know guys if you see them pop up I don't wanna poop up the mesh

Edit: looks like max hops = 0 works

[dense basin]

Ya just saw it lol I have my phone on DND after 10pm so I don't get notifications but just looked and it's there

[pseudo kestrel]

❤️

Looks like the dashboard at thebadplace cannot see me, but rem-labs can

[dense basin]

Hmm says you're only 2 hops from me but I cannot traceroute you no response

[pseudo kestrel]

Would you try RxTr as well, for completeness' sake?

[leaden crow]

I saw it too in Holladay

[dense basin]

Ya just a sec

[pseudo kestrel]

I updated the firmware and tried restoring from a config dump I took, it seems to not have taken completely

[leaden crow]

That almost always happens to me, seems like it misses some of the settings if you try to load them all at once.

[pseudo kestrel]

I would love it if the bulk-restore tool actually bulk-restored >_<

(minor gripe only, I can certainly code nothing better for it)

[dense basin]

Same thing lemme switch to my roof node and try from there

Might just be my pocket node being silly

[pseudo kestrel]

could also be my obnoxious signal crater 💀

wow, there's a large number of settings that got skipped 💀

[prisma saddle]

yup all good

[prisma saddle]

from herriman.

[pseudo kestrel]

❤️

many thanks

[prisma saddle]

anytime.

and rxt @pseudo kestrel

again. a working mesh rocks. lol

[pseudo kestrel]

fantastic ^_^

[pseudo kestrel]

theoretically, I have reset everything to how it should be

[prisma saddle]

threw one of my nodes back on fs20 to see who is there in the Utah county area..for alignment with POTM and lehi.

[real cedar]

Probably a lot. Last I checked 20 has like 200 nodes in the valley

Prom point node getting built. Giving up a femtofox for it. It makes me cringe idk why. Probably because I only have two of them

[prisma saddle]

ha ha. cool

ya.. hmm ill bet if we could ge that lake mountain one over...

would help

K7MSH lakemountain. .hmm

thats the ham guys you said right?

[real cedar]

Yes but as I said to @leaden crow the other day. I think for a HAM to commit resources theyd probably want to make sure it won't be a CF like FS20. That's just the way I see it because if I were a person who's about to put the effort in actually getting the paperwork done to put something on the tower, I would want to know people are serious.

Anyways, I do have a question for you guys. I'm gonna put a femtofox out there on promontory point. I finally decided that that is gonna be the hardware for it. But what I would really like to do is send some battery and health statuses once an hour as an automated broadcast as a script. Do you guys have any ideas because I've got to monitor some non-standard batteries?

I'm gonna dig into the luckfox and see if there's an ADC onboard for that

Resistor divider. Log on device every 15 minutes. Send a automated broadcast stating
Time: Bat Percent, Charge Status, 0IEL (0 Insolation Estimated Lifetime) once an hour with the 4 readings on longfast idk

I need a way to remotely monitor it since it's gonna be a Linux node

[leaden crow]

I have not been following the femtofox development closely. I would ask about this:
#1302945239689990185 message
I bet they have made more progress since that post.

[real cedar]

Will do

My 550 21700 90% A grade used cells im happy to report are all above 5000 mah

I now how 550 21700s for the cost of about 150 bucks

What a fucking pay off to a gamble

[leaden crow]

550 meaning quantity 550?
That is a lot of 21700 cells. Did you harvest them from some dentist's tesla? 😆

[real cedar]

What a fucking pay off to a gamble

[real cedar]

Yes sir

No, I actually harvested them from a lot of old E-waste and stuff that was about three years old or such and the lots on these serial numbers are dated to about three to five years old and they all have very low cycle counts. After about 150 days of testing, they're all at about 90 to 95% of manufacturing specifications.

And I got a few off of some auctions in Pennsylvania.

I just got done testing all of them. They're going to be part of a lot that I'm saving and stocking up to build an electric mini bike, but I need 2,600 cells.

Because that's about the maximum I can fit in the entire bike frame with the motor and all the other stuff. And if I can do that, I can have about 100 miles range on a mini bike with about 20 kilowatts of power, which is just fucking insane if you know what these numbers mean and translate to.

The bike will literally be the definition of death wish, but considering the build's name is appropriate for it, I have no problem with this

Build Name: Anubis

[leaden crow]

I think you should tell people you harvested them from some dentist's tesla. Way better story.

[real cedar]

Used batteries are the way, man. I don't know why people buy new batteries. Just go buy for the same cost 100 used batteries and odds are you're gonna have a good view that are fine.

[real cedar]

Rofl

I think a few may have came from lime scooters, but I'm not going to confirm or deny that.

I harvest a lot of old E-waste and things that I know have those kinds of battery cells. Also if you're looking around a lot of old modem batteries have 18650s in them and they're usually really good quality and you can get them in bulk with those kinds of resellers on eBay and so and such.

You just have to be comfortable with removing them from the pack and de-spot welding them.

[leaden crow]

Agree on the recycled batteries though. You ever watch jehu garcia? That guy recycles TONS of batteries. So many out there are barely used.

[pseudo kestrel]

I love powering some of our smaller projects from cells we shucked out of the disposable vapes we've found in the street

[real cedar]

Honestly, yeah, and I'm on that train too. If there's good looking out there, I'll take it. I'm not gonna go ahead and buy new unless I need new.

[long crown]

This isn’t on 51 is it?

[dense basin]

Yes tho I think they have a similarly named node on 20

[real cedar]

It was briefly

I haven't seen it again

Its on 45

I saw it with my SDR

[prisma saddle]

ya i’ve not seen it for a while.

[real cedar]

I think it's safe to say we need to forgo waiting on help to put stuff in those places. We can put stuff there and if the help comes we can tell them oh hey the hardware is located here. We can retrieve it or you can relocate it

I think that's the best way to get our network ship shape before winter returns because winter is coming hahah

[prisma saddle]

this rtl sdr or something else?

[real cedar]

Pluto

With the extension to 13.2 ghz

[prisma saddle]

looks like fun.

[real cedar]

The search antenna is on my balcony but it limits me to about 6.7 ghz

I need to clamp its wire down to the base

Its free hanging now

[prisma saddle]

i’d like to get into those. what’s a less expensive one to get into with?

[real cedar]

Surpringly good reception.. Since I'm on a hill looking down to the left and right

[real cedar]

One of those is typically pretty expensive, yeah. I got mine on eBay because I knew how to repair it. I got it for parts only at about $160 and I think a new one goes for about 700. And the antenna itself goes for about 300.

But I got the antenna used as well, and I think you can still find those for about $100. But yeah, you're definitely going to want to have some electronics repair skills if you want to get in to expensive SDRs.

And for the record, yes, that is LMR 400, outdoor rated. Hanging off of that antenna.

The type of antenna you're looking at is called a discone antenna

https://www.everythingrf.com/community/what-is-a-discone-antenna

It's very wide band, and it's very suited to searching. It's not very great for transmission, but I don't care to transmit on that radio.

[prisma saddle]

ah ya not happening on my house. so guess nvm. lol.

[real cedar]

Also pay attention to the page. It tells you something unique about the antenna. The exterior of the antenna's elements are grounded. The interior has an insulator and an actual antenna inside the metal. So you don't actually have to worry about mounting it to a metal pole or lightning as much.

[real cedar]

Yeah, it's definitely something you want to do once you have the money. Money is a big thing in the radio hobby.

And something that's really cool about this is if you look at the structure of the antenna, the disk, aka that flat part, that set of elements going all the way around is the radiating element where the cone on the bottom is the grounded element improving your ground plane because it spreads out the impedance.

That cone also provides a resonance to the center column, which allows you to tune this across a wide band of frequencies.

[dense basin]

You ever worry about blowing up your SDR while transmitting higher power radios or do you have a switch to ground them when you PTT?

[prisma saddle]

it’s more the looks of it. lol wife would kill me.

[real cedar]

I have a proper switches and dummy loads

But my discone if your notice got damaged in the last lightning storm and wind storm

I'm currently in need of machinist

To fabricate me the disc again

[dense basin]

Ah gotcha on the switches right on

[dense basin]

I do the caveman method right now and just unplug the antenna when I transmit which gets tedious

Yeah a good discone is expensive

I've got the $90 Tram special on my SDR and the aerials come loose in the wind

[real cedar]

I put dri loc on mine dude

Preserves the conductivity

Holds it in tight

Brushes off clean

[dense basin]

Oh damn that is a good idea

[real cedar]

Mine are mechanical AF. I used relays to trigger them because I wanted to know when the switch occured. Haha that was my caveman element

Everytime I do stuff. Click click click

The box is strapped to the balcony so the click hits the balcony wood and you can hear it inside haha

[dense basin]

"Positive feedback" lol

[real cedar]

But like I said I rarely transmit and if I do it's probably not legal but I keep it under 500 mw

I think generally that's below the level any ham would give any shit about

Figure its polite to be very quiet

[dense basin]

Honestly most hams use too much power anyway

[real cedar]

The engineer in me gets irritated when something is operating as efficiently as it can

So generally I make sure I have a as much sensitivity as possible and use as little power as possible

But it has its draw backs

You can't be unfiltered

Ever

Literally

Or your fucked

[dense basin]

When I first started on HF I had a super ghetto setup and poorly grounded and not up high enough and nobody could hear me so I ran 1kW, whenever I keyed up the sprinkler solenoids in my lawn would trigger and thei neighbor's doorbell would go off

[real cedar]

So if I actually went and got my HAM license. The thing I'd do is ask the forest service for a plot of land on a high desolte peak. Literally. Forget super nice towers and all the stuff people like to do for ultra high power. Nah. Let's put a nice station high up for lower power comms. Let's have stuff that can auroral bounce and grab stuff from the other side of the world.. And rebroadcast HF and JS8 stuff over metastatic. You know?

Like I get it, okay. Don't get mad at me if you're a amateur radio person. I totally understand why you guys do everything you do. But I want to say there is a certain element of fun to trying to do things with as little power and as much efficiency as possible in hard to reach locations. It's a puzzle.

[dense basin]

Oh I totally agree

[real cedar]

Plus, I mean in an emergency. If you can relay over metastatic to everyone that would be important in an emergency and you can relay global information, that's pretty big. And I know you can already do that with the stuff that they have, but it would be nice if it could be reach everybody and not just the people with money to get into the hobby.

[dense basin]

There is no challenge in throwing more power at the problem

[real cedar]

There is some challenge, but it's not a fun challenge.

At some point it just becomes madness and stupidity. 🤣

[dense basin]

Yup lol

Those SOTA guys are pretty hardcore and do just that, climb up to the middle of nowhere and throw a wire up a tree and do CW at 100mW and reach all over the world

[real cedar]

You should link to some other stuff. I would love to do such a thing and then pass it over a mesh relay.

You know who I really want to de-mask? Seed Studio. Who are these guys? And why do they make such great products? But most importantly, who are these guys? They're nearly impossible to figure out who they are.

[dense basin]

Oh now you got me curious about Seeed - I just assumed it was some corporate outfit

[prisma saddle]

i’m excited for their solar node.

[dense basin]

So like, a CW to meshtastic gateway or some such thing? That would be just crazy enough to try. Fun project idea

[white field]

okay, I'm very tempted to try for a stansbury node to kick my nodes online and bypass NPR for linking to skyline.

I have a 12 DBI yagi I could setup in my bedroom and ensure the link has enough SNR.

[real cedar]

Okay if your down for that I have hardware I was building for black mountain

If your down we can combine forces and just go do that

Stansbury also sees AUR and AUR sees POTM

[white field]

Black mountain wont be able to direct link to my house. kekw

[real cedar]

Yeah that's why I'm down to move that to stansbury

But if you wait a weekend or two I have a giggle for us both

Wanna see if neptunia on prom point can see your local linked nodes and routers

🤣

[white field]

Can black mountain reliably link to AUR?

[real cedar]

Yes

AUR sees everything ensign peak towers can see

It's a bit OP

I rarely use NPR now lmfao

[white field]

hmm

black mountain wouldn't enable the skyline link

via Boutler

nor onaqui

[real cedar]

AUR I think sees the most nodes of any router on the entire networks as it stands so its our workhorse. POTM close second

Our roccinante if you would 😂

Don Quixote NOT the expanse

I did that purposefully. It was the best spot to get a full mesh metric collector. Haha. I figured we were hitting long fast limitations with the different types of complaints we were seeing

So yeah.. Stansbury when?

[white field]

oh you know what

[real cedar]

RaK?

[white field]

if black mountain links to AUR I'm also fine

[real cedar]

Well black mountain doesn't exist yet

Its just the best spot cuz its a long line sight

[white field]

I just need something that isn't NPR to get my link to skyline

[real cedar]

And that's what I'm piggy backing off of

Want the black mountain hey what's thay

[white field]

wait, I am slow

so black mountain wont be able to see any of my skyline chain

tho we could replace onaqui with a desseret and be fine

That would yield:

• AUR
• black mountain
• deseret
• boulter
• skyline
• elena
• moab
• client node

too many hops 😕

[real cedar]

https://www.heywhatsthat.com/?view=CTMM54LW

Yeah it cant

I'm down for stansbury

I don't want to get shot

[white field]

Yeah, I think my best bet would be stansbury

[real cedar]

And I don't want it screwed with

[white field]

it can hit boulter directly and we can de-commission onaqqui

then finish any long distance links from that corridor

[real cedar]

Yes finally

That would be great

It would clean a lot of links up

So do we want to do a RAK?

I got the bat packs premade

I got an enclosure

[white field]

I have a rak module already done.

[real cedar]

Oh heck yeah

[white field]

tbh, I'm like, "should I go place it tonight?"

[real cedar]

Should we call it Salt Router

😂

[white field]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmc6L_UWUSc

[real cedar]

Callsign SALT

[white field]

I do feel kinda funny about this spot tho, its not my normal MO.

Barren summit

[real cedar]

You should make it a router_late tbch

Yeah

Hey I got some stuff to disguise it with

I got spray paint for that peak

And an anemometer

We could attach it to the top

[white field]

oh nice

[real cedar]

Haha

[white field]

yeah, maybe we use yours for that spot. Mine is just a grey box with solar.

[real cedar]

Picture?

[white field]

they are the standard RAK prefab enclosures

[real cedar]

Honestly that's perfect. No anemometer needed

What we need is a sch80 PVC pipe or fiberglass

At this point you have to accept its barren and you just mount it so its impossible to remove conveniently in any manner

And leave it

Remove all identifiable info

[white field]

I mean, people do trail run it tho

[real cedar]

Accept it can get stolen haha

Okay do we want to mount it to a rockface?

I have anchors

[white field]

lol yeahh, I was considering if we actually care about the north facing signal. I could install it on the rockface on the south.

south-east facing on a rock face.

[real cedar]

We don't at all

Let me DM you something before we decide

[real cedar]

Sent neptunias real loc to you

So.. If you want to do stansbury. Router late..

Based on those two coverage maps we have?

I think it will honestly be an amazing double link between the two

You'd be able to reach Ogden in hop limit

All the way to tremonton haha

I'm seriously stoked to place that. The square miles it will serve is utterly insane

[prisma saddle]

yes! lol

[real cedar]

I'm also scared to place it

See there's the good.. We know the good but there's Murphy's law

There could be a lot of hidden island 51 networks in that HUGE swath of area it covers and it could bring down the network 😭

[prisma saddle]

that would link up my dad in grantsville. :). maybe.

[white field]

yeah, let me check topography of stansbury. TBH, I don't want an epic rock scramble starting at 7p after a glass of wine.

[real cedar]

I would

[prisma saddle]

lol. more of a story.

it’s not dark till like 9. your fine. lol.

[leaden crow]

If you've never been to Stansbury before, the scenery is surreal. Tourists always want to visit the salt flats, but the evap ponds at Stansbury are a way cooler sight IMO.

[real cedar]

We are working on a stansbury placement in DMs

Its happening

[prisma saddle]

sweet. excited to see it pop up.

[real cedar]

@hallow dagger Hey bud. You own POTM right? What about NPR? Could we get filters on those and update the firmware by chance? Just curious where the state of those are for you

@dim bay it's been a while. I was told you own lake mountain router. Are you planning to keep it on 45 or would a router on 51 be possible there?

[prisma saddle]

i tried to message him to. guess will see what happens. although i’m a nobody. so. lol

[white field]

I love cusor.

I don't even have to write the CLI commands.

Meshtastic CLI via ChatGPT

[prisma saddle]

haha. stansberry up?

[white field]

oh hell no

[prisma saddle]

oh ha ha.

[white field]

I'm waiting on an RF filter to arrive

I'm just trying to change my node's weather updates intervals for the mountaintops.

[prisma saddle]

what’s ya getting?

[white field]

and the mesh is so flaky I might try writing a script to the updates that keeps retrying until:

• it gives up
• it finally succeeds

[prisma saddle]

oh dang. npr not a clear link?

[real cedar]

Are you broadcasting weather updates on long-fast like me?

[white field]

Yeah they are available from 11k and 8k ft

[real cedar]

How do we request them and which nodes?

[white field]

Solar:3 and solar:4

[real cedar]

Ahh

Just /wx

Spotty af

Haha

Gotta get that stansbury up haha

So I gambled again. I've got from auction 373 18650 3400 mah Samsung cells. All 90/90 guaranteed.. For 77 dollars 🤣

Who needs batteries lmfao

[pseudo kestrel]

jesus, that's a lot of cells xD

[real cedar]

Look with tariffs I know there's a run on batteries. In jumping the gun and grabbing numerous projects worth of batteries. All left over will get converted into a solar battery mega pack for use as backup power

Or hell even smaller projects like bling vanity lighting the mini bike

With frosted diffused neon led ropes haha

[real cedar]

Go to places that specialise in it or auction it off ebay

I mean hell if you get some bad cells who cares at sub 1 dollar a cell

Seriously

[prisma saddle]

holy crap!

[prisma saddle]

that’s pretty awesome. is there something specific your searching for on ebay or just the battery type. or what ever they are in?

like e-bike battery packs. or w/e

[real cedar]

Nothing specific

You just gotta do the footwork

[real cedar]

I might buy the new batch of femtofoxes

And just use those for 1 watts

They can remote admin easier

Save the nebras for backcountry

I do want to run it up the cottonwoods. I ski at night in the backcountry.. So I'd like a connection to telling the world I'm fucked at GPS location XYZ haha

[prisma saddle]

lol yeah that would definitely be useful.

[leaden crow]

Installed this roof node for a friend today. We bolted the mast to a safety anchor his solar installers left. Getting the antenna above the roofline made a huge difference.

[prisma saddle]

looks great. i’d love to get mine higher. over the roofline.

[leaden crow]

I had another node on his roof on one of his vent pipes. It had good line of sight to NPR, but all his traffic would hop through NPR. Just getting the antenna above the roof line, I now get direct traces back--from Holladay to just east of Daybreak.

[prisma saddle]

was that th roof?

[leaden crow]

Yes

[real cedar]

Was that one of the two nodes I saw come online?

TH roof

Oh

Lmfao

Answered

Doe

DISCORD 😡

[real cedar]

Your side lobes are point down instead of up 😛

I love those solar panels

So clean

[real cedar]

It should have too LOS of AUR and POTM too

[prisma saddle]

what solar panel is that?

[leaden crow]

https://www.amazon.com/Soshine-6w-Performance-Monocrystalline-Cellphone/dp/B09ZL3F7CT
If you use the USB output (not the barrel jack, I just cut those off). It has regulated 5v output. So you can plug it straight in to the RAK solar JST

The mount is this:
https://www.printables.com/model/820212-meshtastic-solar-base-station

[real cedar]

The best panel ive found for winter and shaded output is
https://a.co/d/9NnekFt

Buck convert to bms

Boost convert to device

Tada haha. I've been ordering little efficient ones off amazon because they are cheaper than reving a board and putting them on a protoboard and synchronizing them into a big vreg

Super capacitors on the boost output for Cleanliness and smoothing. Super caps on the output to the battery for charging

More an experiment

See how it helps clean up power

I'm very proud of this. Might publish

Haha

[white field]

I figured out an amazing mesh hack

Holy shit

I fixed NPR

Okay, so the problem with NPR is that there’s spam content on the mesh from random interference

If you spam the mesh traffic across the mesh by sending DMs. It increases channel utilization above 30%

This forces Devices to stop broadcasting analytics when they detect this high traffic state

Which means the air is clear

Then you wait 30s for any residual repeating of your messages and finally send the message you actually want delivered/acked

First try, it got me a response form onaqui/solar4

It’s working 100-% of the time now

Wtf

I’m blown away

[prisma saddle]

hmm. i guess that’s a way to always get across.

[white field]

I mean it’s a bit disruptive, but only for metrics

Which I feel are irrelevant compared to messages/config updates

I’m very happy for all metrics to die if someone wants to use a 30s spam preamble to clear the airwaves

I feel like this might be an interesting strategy for messages in general:

Broadcast shhhhhh messages to mesh someone is speaking

Then every node pauses metrics until a timeout of a min or so

[prisma saddle]

do you have one that has worked best for you? i have a few just random amazon ones i’ve used. and what’s boost convert to device?

[prisma saddle]

to bad you can’t have a separate freq for metrics.

or under a diff channel. that somehow does not flood the network.

[white field]

I mean just make sure your broadcasts are super infrequent

4-8hrs is fine for almost all of them

[prisma saddle]

ya i’ve moved mine more into those ranges. might have one that is not.

[leaden crow]

It would be nice if they added that to the firmware. Something like an STFU packet that causes all nodes to pause sending node_info, position, neighbor_info, telemetry.. for like 1 minute.

[white field]

911 calls do this with cell networks

They drop calls and deprio all data so that the 911 call will get max possible signal

[real cedar]

Lmfao.. Your extra hella confirming are need to go to short fast pronto

[real cedar]

Its hilarious to watch on a spectrum analyzer

Busy busy busy.. ZAP.. Brrrr.. Literally one carrier doing stuff. Then back to normal

And your like hahah another 911 call

[prisma saddle]

Playing with the idea of a rak drone. for temp distance extension. have about 4-6 inch under the drone because of its landing gear. thoughts on an antenna ?

[leaden crow]

17cm Gizont
https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/antennas/#compact--handheld

[real cedar]

I use the 17 cm gizonts on our drone idea that already does that haha

But we have a very different use case for our drone than yours very clearly

😆

[real cedar]

Oh 🤣 you meant mesh extension with a loitering drone. Well first of a **copter is the worst for loiter

[dense basin]

Something like this inverted, with 6 ground radials (one for each drone arm) with a single inverted 1/4 wave radial

[real cedar]

Weight becomes a problem on drones

We are using the mesh network to actually interrogate the drone and for telemetry but idk how littleton has his setup.

[dense basin]

Ya he could use like 22g wire

[real cedar]

Anyways for long temp loiter.. You really want a fixed wing that can loiter in circles efficiently

[prisma saddle]

lol. ya.

[prisma saddle]

not fhis one. i can carry. dslr on it. for 30 min.

[prisma saddle]

ha ha ya not that. just to get some more height for a bit. is all. for science. lol

just taking a node up there to see what more i can get see if it helps. or hurts. etc.

[dense basin]

Science!

I loves me some science

But yeah 1/4 wave of 915mhz is around 3 inches long, so each ground radial and center radiator would be about 3 inches long and could be made from very thin wire, if you ever wanted to give it a whirl. Radiation pattern upside down would be a big stretchy donut angled downwards

[prisma saddle]

cool. ya this time just using the antenna above. since i have one already.

the 17cm. haha

[real cedar]

So I'm working on a totally different idea and it's why I hope to see the mesh expand over everything in our area on short fast. I actually want to fully C2 the drone over meshtastic. And have semi autonomy so I can use the meshtastic backbone as my Controller

[dense basin]

That would be super badass

[prisma saddle]

I can se you trying to contrrol it over direct messing.. reaching channel util ization.. .. crash!

left

left left.... no!!

[real cedar]

@dense basin here is an example of one of my spare dummy loads

This ones a 300W

0-10 GHz

[dense basin]

Oh that is NICE - is that custom machined from billet aluminum looks like?

[real cedar]

Yes sir

[dense basin]

Beautiful

[real cedar]

Connectors are coated copper

[dense basin]

Ive got some Pasternack dummies around somewhere but they only go to 1.2ghz and I have to bolt them to a heatsink - that one you have looks a lot more efficient

[real cedar]

It is if you have air to cool it, which I do. It's sticking outside of the enclosure at least partially.

[real cedar]

I read pasternack as psychiatric and I had a lot of questions until I reread

[dense basin]

I have psychiatric dummies too, like 3 living in my basement

[real cedar]

Lmfao. So this is a planned router site. Desert Peak. In the middle of the hill air range on a piece of BLM land

Gonna call it "Boom Boom"

I bought a stone auger attachment for my drill so I can slam a pipe into the peak and call it good. If someone fucks with it this remotely. I seriously. Seriously have no fucks to give and will just replace

[leaden crow]

That's going to be a beast hiking that stuff up Deseret. Have you considered installing in a rock face with tapcons?

[real cedar]

Desert not deseret and no I hadnt

[white field]

What's the winter snowpack depth like up there?

I know it's skiiable in winter, so you will probably need to consider that

oh, wait maybe im thinking about the wrong peak

Desert would link to onaqui or stansbury, but NPR would probably be unable to hear it.

Given that NPR <-> onaqui link is currently broken 95% of the time.

Hmm, I wonder if we should put a filtered fempto on Stansbury. 😕

[real cedar]

Nah dont. Prom point will be a 1 watt. Filtered rak is enough.

I have your filter

Also new point for prom point going to your DMs

I really think we should tag deseret though

I know there's been hesitation but man it's perfect

It solves the hop problem but how do we do it in such a way that it sees both east and west from the top and doesn't attract attention

@white field ahh screw it. Imma try to put neptunia in the original spot haha

[void iris]

I havent been able to keep up with this chat recently; Are the filters on the routers making a big impact? What filters are you using?

[leaden crow]

I put the Acasom on ds nsl and saw a good improvement.
#1197577977781821541 message

I think AUR had the GPIO labs filter from the get-go, so no before / after testing.

I thought about buying a GPIO labs to test. Honestly I think they are only worth the insertion loss if you know it's a noisy RF environment. AUR and NPR should have them for sure.

[white field]

I've been hearing that filters are providing 4dbi better SNR.

[void iris]

That's crazy big

[white field]

I just ordered 3x

[void iris]

Do you happen to have a link?

[white field]

@real cedar directed me to these. https://gpio.com/products/915-mhz-ism-band-pass-bandpass-filter-with-26-mhz-bandwidth

Yeah, for our routers around the city these seem to be a must-have.

For remote (low-noise) nodes it's complete overkill.

solar:3 <-> solar:4 currently have a rock solid 75 mile link. (like 100% ack rate)

[real cedar]

A rather large impact yes.

4-6 dBi for the highest routers with the most LOS

Their insertion loss is 2.5 dB. Thats not awful. Just dumb up your antenna gain to compensate and your gooch

1 watts we use the acasom
Less than 1 watt I've recommended the GPIO labs filter to everyone. I've filtered all my nodes. I've got before and after testing. 3-5 dBi solidly for me with the gpio labs filters. Higher in the city. Lower in the quiet areas

[prisma saddle]

so even client nodes could use one ?

[dense basin]

https://gpio.com/collections/filters/products/915-mhz-bandpass-filter-kit-for-helium-miners-and-hotspots

[prisma saddle]

i mean would help?

[dense basin]

Is that the correct filter?

Man discord acting wacky for me today

[prisma saddle]

sweet. ill have to look into those.. was it the first one or second link?

[leaden crow]

I think both links are the same product. One of the links includes "two RF adapters." Although it's ambiguous what those are. Maybe SMA-RP adapters? I wish they had actual product pictures that show you the connectors. I'd like to visually see what it is.

[prisma saddle]

ah ya. and you guys are putting these in the box with the node right? so node > filter > antenna. so having to convert frrom sma to like on the alfa, n-type.

[prisma saddle]

id love to see the inside of one of your boxes for this setup?

[leaden crow]

I don't have a picture of it rn, but for my Acasom I used these 2 cables:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9RXN26M
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00COX9MTG
https://acasom.com/products/915mhz-cavity-filter-for-helium-network-amplifier-filter-sma-type-high-out-band-rejection

[prisma saddle]

oh cool ive actually got both of those cables i think. yup i do

[leaden crow]

I think the GPIO uses the same SMA-F connectors, so those cables should work. I'm guessing that link with the adapters is for some Helium thing that uses RP-SMA.

[prisma saddle]

ah from canada.. teriffs? lol

didnt think of that until after i clicked buy. owell lol

[dense basin]

Looks like its this kit it comes with https://gpio.com/collections/rf-adapters-and-connectors/products/helium-rf-adapter-kit

[real cedar]

If you want. Look the rule goes. Anything you can do to improve your RF environment within reason. Do so. Amplify last

[real cedar]

Don't bother in the kit. Bulk pasternacks, amphenols and mini circuits off of Digikey is cheaper for the long run of project making and the quality is far more outstanding

I bought like 20 of each that I needed of various nature. I got pasternack coming out the wazu

I use a F-M or M-F of each connector on all my electronics too as a connector saver

So when one pasternack wears its not the one soldered to the board haha

But I'm also pretty anal about it cuz most of the stuff I'm using this on is metrology equipment.. Not hobby tier

[prisma saddle]

i don’t even know what those are.

[real cedar]

So those are brands. High quality connectors come from Mini Circuits, Pasternack and Amphenol

[prisma saddle]

oh ok.

[real cedar]

They make and certify everything to the spec and extremely tight tolerances and are Choosey about materials

They aren't as cheap

But their quality is absolutely god tier in comparison

No play when screwing stuff on

When it's tight it stops

It doesn't proceed to break the tolerances and rotate the entire connector internal barrel

Lmfao

Or you know the threads fit perfectly

[prisma saddle]

cool. thanks for that.

[real cedar]

What's stupid is the Chinese make good quality stuff themselves all the time. But they don't sell that outside their borders LOL

@prisma saddle
What's your background. I keep forgetting to ask so I know how to frane answers to questions

Cuz otherwise I'll just default to "talking to an RF engineer or ham"

[prisma saddle]

computers. servers. IT. drones. rc cars. diy holiday lighting. electronics. hopefully soon ham tech license. prob something else. but to old to remember.

[real cedar]

Ahh okay so at least some familiarity then

But RF topics still seem magical?

[prisma saddle]

ya somewhat. have baofeng radios for listening on ham. and gmrs. have gmrs license. use them a lot at the cabin.

and side by side. but ya. still pretty new to it.

[prisma saddle]

yup explains all the questions.

[real cedar]

Baofeng 😑.
No shade at you. I'm okay with the net positive of bringing more people into the hobby

Its the assholes who broadcast full wattage all the time with them.. That I hate. Ever see a baofeng on a scope. Spurs EVERYWHERE haha

Horrible broadcast

But it's the Chinese solution

Just throw more power and voltage at the problem

[prisma saddle]

ha ha ya for sure.

[real cedar]

Need more power. Who needs filters and decoupling capacitors 🤣. What are chokes?

[prisma saddle]

blocks low freq dc and allows high freq ac signals etc. or so

ya. fun stuff.

[real cedar]

Oh that was part of my sarcasm and making fun of the baofengs

A redesign of their PCB could easily clean it up. Trade a bit of power

[prisma saddle]

oh ha ha gotcha.

[real cedar]

I'd probably use much higher quality crystals

[prisma saddle]

yup. seen a few things about that stuff on the net.

[real cedar]

Actual temp compensated crystals

Lololol

[prisma saddle]

put this in you guide. hardware lists of suggestions for best signal. etc. with affiliate links. LOL

[prisma saddle]

1/3 drones good so far. lol.

original is perfect.

my hexa not so much.

[real cedar]

So 😂🤣 I gambled on more batteries.

[prisma saddle]

oh what now?

[real cedar]

I have 257 more batteries
Mostly Panasonic T1 18650s at 3400 mah.. 133 of those and Samsung 50G 21700s.. 123 of those and a 30 Ah lifepo4 for the mini bike

[prisma saddle]

ha ha nice! morecebay?

[real cedar]

The 50G are 4900 mah

[real cedar]

Yeah this time through a reseller called the battery clearing house

Good shit

Gonna have to work at some for recovery but who cares

90% medical grade cells

No brainer. I'll pop batteries all day long if it means my next few years of hobbies are covered

[prisma saddle]

ha ha. nice!

working on my octa drone. think i fried either all 6 esc. or my fc is dead. not sure yet. will need to swap my other fc in to see if same thing happens.

3 years ago. soldered my bat as wrong pol. most have been high. dunno. lol.

[real cedar]

I want more LTO. I actually like the chemistry

It can dump current down to 1.5V

Its very easy to boost convert when your not current limited and you don't need to worry about much vdroop

Its why my desert nodes are getting LTOs

In winter you can charge them at 50 A 🤣 at - 55 C

Like they fundamentally do not care about temperature all that much. Heat will kill them but it takes more heat than lifepo4

They also have insanely high cycle life

The caveat is they are not small. They require complicated power circuits and precision charging. Your charge controller cannot exceed 2.85V ever

[prisma saddle]

ahh. so more $$$ to charge and run them.

[real cedar]

They were used in luxury cars for their 12v bats

[prisma saddle]

guess makes it up in the end as lasting longer.

[real cedar]

A bit. You need to design the circuit that will

Hence why I need adc pins

And some extra stuff

Boosts and bucks

Mppt

Super caps

[prisma saddle]

sounds complicated lol

[real cedar]

It wasn't that hard

Here is the chain

Solar panel --> mppt --> Buck converter --> super cap bank --> battery.

To the rak it's battery --> super cap bank -T-> boost converter --> super cap pi filter --> choke --> Rak

See where I put the T. That's a tap. It takes the battery voltage and feeds it to a voltage divider and into the ADC pin and then I modify the ADC multiplier 😂

[prisma saddle]

each of my solar client nodes have dual 18650 3400mah in parallel.. i know they wont last long. but im just getting into it all

[real cedar]

That way I have accurate power metrics and can monitor both the incoming voltage off the boost converter and the battery voltage

Voila

LTO RAK

with actual battery monitoring haha

[prisma saddle]

ha ha any pics of that? curoise how it looks and how much of a nest it is

id be curoise to see how you wire raks.. @real cedar

[real cedar]

Not any I want to share. When it's production I'll share

RN I'm having to modify firmware

But I think I found a way to do it without doing so

But you'll have to give me time. I have 7 concurrent projects rn

[prisma saddle]

doh lol. ight.

[real cedar]

So I'm thinking there might be a way if I can find the same package.. To replace the charge ic with one that can handle multi chemistry

If so I can reflow those.. Get that working fine.. And then just use the same setup for all batteries. Plug in directly.

Anyways you'll find the ADC at r3 and r4. You must do something destructive for the modification

Cut the trace leading to V bat

Solder a wire to r3. Grab input voltage from the battery there. Your still isolated. The ADC reads the voltage. That's it

@prisma saddle on a 19007 board

@white field @leaden crow if you run LTO with rak same thing. What you need to do is cut the ADC access to the input of your boost converter with a lesser chemistry.. Take the VBAT supply of that ADC and feed it to the true battery voltage on the positive terninal. I've yet to figure out if the boost converter could be monitored by exploiting the power module circuits

[leaden crow]

If I ever switch to LTO or NA+, I will probably use these:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1609406536/mppt-solar-battery-charger-for-iot
https://docs.voltaicenclosures.com/mcsbc-svr/MCSBC-SVR-INA3221-for-Meshtastic-rev1.0.pdf

[real cedar]

I thought about doing that I was trying to find a way to cooperate with current meshtastic firmware

I love the raks for Router_Late (RL) cuz their power levels perfect but only a fraction of their accessories readily work over meshtastic :/

Same with seed and grove stuff haha

I might move to purchase a lot of femtofoxes if the worst comes to worst just cuz at least I can then do it with some ease

I'd like to not have to run my own firmware spins on Gitea. Cuz that would mean I'd need CI/CD for that to be convenient and I'm holistically uninterested in CI/CD

[real cedar]

Also @white field @leaden crow thank god I decided to filter the prom point node or we would all be on the fed radar. Literally and Figuretively. Know why? KMTX

The third harmonic of 915 MHz (2745 MHz) falls within the KMTX radar’s 2.7–3.0 GHz band. Without a filter, harmonic emissions from a 1-watt transmitter might be -10 to -20 dBc (20–10 dBm, or 0.01–0.1 mW). The Acasom cavity filter, however, provides 40–60 dB of attenuation for out-of-band signals.

🤣 literally would have shown up.. On the NWS radar. But we got strong AF filtering so we are golden 😄 and because their front end has stupidly good filtering.. It should not get desensitized by our weeee little 1 watt node

[white field]

Ooof gpio delivery delayed 2 weeks.

[prisma saddle]

eh ya same thing here.

[real cedar]

Is he on vacation again 🤣

I have a filter for you and the stansbury rak

You just let me know if you need it

[white field]

You know what, I might also be missing some adapters, but yeah let's do that.

Weather looks like it's gonna suck, but I want to get it built and bench tested for when I have the motivation.

Oh actually I think stock cables and some adapters I have will make this work.

I forgot that RAKs come with their own u.FL to SMA-F

[leaden crow]

I have extra of these slightly nicer ones if you want a couple:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9RXN26M?th=1
Although $9 from Amazon with overnight delivery basically makes these things not worth the time to hand deliver.

[real cedar]

Name the adapter I probably got you

DM me your setup

[real cedar]

this is true too. I've got supplies. I'll provide what we need to make it happen if y'all need

[leaden crow]

Maybe I'll leave work early. See if I won the GPS lottery.

[leaden crow]

@real cedar I don't know how closely you're following the channel, but the LTE cards for these are also on ebay for $15 (same seller).
#1367293403867516979 message

I haven't bought one, but if either of mine ended up on Farnsworth, Lake Mountain, etc. I would try to get the LTE card in it for remote management.

[brazen spindle]

greetings, I'm new here and I've recently acquired a few meshtastic devices, namely 2x T1000-e and 1x T-Echo. I'm guessing that since I can see over 80 nodes with the default longfast channel from indoors in the sandy/cottonwood heights area that the default settings and regular client mode probably aren't the most beneficial to the mesh in this area... What are the settings y'all would prefer I use to best participate?

personally i'm thinking client_mute on all of them at very least but I'm also not sure if there's been a coordinated switch to shortfast or a different channel already. I haven't yet scrolled back far enough in this chat to see mention of such

[prisma saddle]

Hi there, welcome! yes have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htjwtnjQkkE and, the default settings are basically non-functioning along the Wasatch Front because of this

it is suggested to have client_mute for all devices, except if you have one on your roof, then that can be client. As for the rest. We are using LongFast, and the Frequency slot of 51, instead of the default of 20.

[real cedar]

There hasn't 51 is the coordinate channel but it remains on longfast until we are ready to switch

We are fixing our router setups

Client mute is perfectly fine if not preferred

[real cedar]

I thought about it but I'm not willing to open it up to the inet

I'll gladly take a hike for once in a blue moon service for router nodes

I kinda don't know where to get sub 5 dollar sim cards

And going with mint for each would hurt

[pseudo kestrel]

https://www.simbase.com/best-iot-sim-card/usa

[vital hemlock]

I went ahead and ordered one in case they go up later and I change my mind...

[real cedar]

This is why I like the femtofoxes more

You CAN remote manage all meshtasticD stuff with it apparently. Like remote admin works as normal

So does toggling WiFi onboard

Which is huge. It means I can put a high gain directional antenna.. Point it as a defined spot where I will sit with my laptop in my car downslope at the base.. And use a yagi to talk with WiFi to it and modify it from the ground. But I'd need a log periodic antenna hidden inside the enclosure so it's not obvious af

That's what I'd do but I'm also avoiding connecting my nodes to the internet like the plague lol

[leaden crow]

https://tenor.com/view/barriga-de-aluguel-cláudia-abreu-novela-tv-televisão-gif-10237226427044768204

idk, sipping coffee from my basement while I ssh to update firmware sounds pretty good.

[pseudo kestrel]

I'd personally try using something like ZeroTier, and only allowing SSH/management ports to operate on the ZeroTier interface, then firewall everything on the LTE side

[prisma saddle]

Did you get things figured out? need any help?

[brazen spindle]

I believe I've got things working. I've been able to see like 19 nodes on longfast 51 including Mill_Mesh, AUR, JAL-H, and POTM

[prisma saddle]

ok great. we have 3 major routers up on the mountains that should help greatly. potm. npr and aus.

[prisma saddle]

do you have npr yet?

[brazen spindle]

haven't seen an npr yet...

[prisma saddle]

and have you tried tracing potm ?

let’s see how your connection is thus far.

also do you have an outside node?

[brazen spindle]

I tried earlier but got no response while out walking

[brazen spindle]

I do not yet, but I could probably set a t1000e somewhere outside.

[prisma saddle]

hmm or your t echo up high. facing. potm or npr

Height is key with this.

from my month experience of it.

i think most of us have an outside node set as client. then client mute inside. the outside helps either inside. and so on.

[brazen spindle]

oh I am on top of a hill. With a t1000e in a window facing the valley is how I was able to hear 80+ nodes on longfast 20

[prisma saddle]

oh lucky you. that’s awesome.

once you have all the routers going the 3. you should be able to trace most and so on.

what’s the name of your nodes. i can run some trace to test.

[brazen spindle]

the t echo is currently named "Meshtastic_472b" let me throw it up in that window real quick.

[prisma saddle]

one suggestion for some fun originality feel free to name your nodes. under user settings.

[brazen spindle]

alright it's up there, I just haven't thought of a good name for it yet. One of the t1000e is called "JCRD" and is probably what I'll carry with me but I do like the epaper display on the echo.

[prisma saddle]

cool ya my t1000e stays in my pocket. love it

[brazen spindle]

just not sure if the cute display is worth the cumbersomeness of it vs the sleek and slim t1000e

[prisma saddle]

ok ya i don’t see any of yours yet. i’ve found it takes a bit sometimes. i did reboot mine you should see or start seeing “ACE” prefixed ones.

[brazen spindle]

I think I did see an "ACE" node with the echo earlier...

[prisma saddle]

ah ya that would be on the 20 freq slot.

have you reset your node db since changing the freq slot?

just for real data not the old junk.

[brazen spindle]

yeah that was the first thing I did after also changing to client_mute

[prisma saddle]

ok cool feel free to to throw the echo on just client.

since it’s higher up can help bring in to the others.

[brazen spindle]

is the included omnidirectional antenna on the techo better or worse than the internal antenna of the t1000e? My intuition says it's better but

alright t echo is back on client. it claims to have heard ACE roof and mobile 12 minutes ago

[prisma saddle]

i would say a bit better.

ok cool try tracing it.

[brazen spindle]

no response from either

[prisma saddle]

ya that is my roof node.

ok. i still can’t see yours yet. let’s give it more time.

[brazen spindle]

was able to trace ACE mobile. went out with a hop through POTM and came back with a hop through your ACER

this makes me curious how much better putting something in a tree would be. But I'll need a way to make it squirrel proof

[prisma saddle]

sweet.!

[prisma saddle]

ha ha ya.. they can cause dmg. for sure. I am far from an expert in this. but from my experience having one outside helps a lot

cool ya the mobile is my t1000e

inside next to me

my ace-roof is a rak19007 with a alfa antenna

up on my roof

and i can trace all the routers

and most nodes as long as they are online

[brazen spindle]

this has only just today become a lot more interesting lol. the broken state of longfast 20 had me thinking that unlicensed lora wasn't enough to deal with the hills and city

[prisma saddle]

oh ya.. dont turn on licensed mode.. then the chat channel use is not encrypted.

[brazen spindle]

but it's actually kind of incredible when actually somewhat organized.

[brazen spindle]

yeah and i'd also have to broadcast my callsign

[prisma saddle]

yup. @real cedar @white field @leaden crow have done a lot to make things work. and are still working on further improving it.

your nodes just appeared on my end

[brazen spindle]

even the t1000e?

[prisma saddle]

yup

lets see what i can do with that

[prisma saddle]

try to trace my roof.

[brazen spindle]

quite a few hops but successful

[prisma saddle]

sweet

[brazen spindle]

I feel like those well placed routers are doing a lot of the heavy lifting with this

[prisma saddle]

yup.. its great. you should see them in most of your traceroutes.

point of the mountain.. that should be your closest.. but NPR might work better sometimes.. just depends i guess.

sent you a discord dm. we can test a few things further.

[brazen spindle]

i actually have yet to see NPR, im guessing thats just because it advertises infrequently? seems my outbound will hop through POTM

[real cedar]

I mean 😂 I'm definitely too stir crazy to ever enjoy being inside lol

[real cedar]

Good work, though. I'm not bashing the idea. I just don't really want to connect my device up to the global tracking network.

😆

[real cedar]

AUR and NPR currently route the most if traffic of any of the routers with POTM a close second and 38FB aka ONAQUI.. In 3rd.

This is based in my data from running a trace route once every 5 minutes incrementally through my entire longfast node list

What I have noticed is AUR will route a lot of the eastern side of I15 and a good portion of the northwestern side of the bowl and the far reaching southern areas but there's a weird gap in between and all those nodes seem to just bounce through each other before hitting a router

I've definitely ended up going through RaxBaseStation at @pseudo kestrel's place after NPR to get to AUR which then just direct hops back to me

And I sit there like.. Fucking SNR bias

🤣

But as erayd said it's an imperfect analog so it's 100% to be expected and not a problem

[prisma saddle]

ya sometimes ill trace my MIL's node up the hill, it will hit NPR > POTM > jal-roof then come back to me directly.. gets weird sometimes

[real cedar]

So what I suspect is happening there and please anybody who actually knows correct me. I think it's the SNR bias. I think you might have a weaker SNR to that other node. And as a result, it's broadcasting first just slightly ahead and getting to point to the mountain and then point to the mountain to return to you. It sees you directly and it hops directly. That's what I suspect is happening. But I'm not sure. My sureness is about 30%.

I just learned about router late and all of the functionality in the actual program by looking at the code that erayd Told me it was in after he had summarized it for me and this is just my guess. I don't understand it fully yet. But I've got a grasp on how the contention window logic works.

And I'm curious after we get our router set up to see if it confirms a couple of my theories about what might happen to certain hops and certain routes

[prisma saddle]

cool ya id like to see how things change around. Im going to get up on the roof and arange mine a bit higher and straight up instead of slightly angled. will see if that makes any diff.. both my roof and her roof node are exact in hardware.

you working to get everything switches to route_late? @real cedar

[real cedar]

What I do know has happened to most of northern Salt Lake and pretty much the entire eastern half of the bowl is that instead of me going through Neptuneia, which is my local router late And going to NPR and hopping around and finding a route, now I go either directly to NPR or directly to AUR and I hop to those nodes directly. I don't even bother with any of the other routers anymore.

[real cedar]

And Not everything. So they're going to be exploited where they're useful. And that's why we've been asking a lot and we've been trying to figure out how it actually works.

[prisma saddle]

ya seems very secretive.. maybe not even that.. just.. no one knows how it works lol

[real cedar]

So your lower nodes where they cover maybe part of the town or part of the bull, or they're situated where they can kind of hop something across a ridge line and back. That's where they're very useful. And so nodes like AUR and Point of the Mountain should be routed late, including stansbury that @white field is placing.

[real cedar]

It's not secretive. It's that it's not well documented. And that's no fault of the developers. They've been extremely busy making all of the new features and getting it to the robustness that it's at.

It's why I've started documenting things and when I actually get the time to publish it in a nice way, I think I'm going to try and help them write documentation if I understand stuff well enough.

It's the way I can contribute back, but I don't have the time to actually write a lot of code right now.

[real cedar]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Is that soldered directly to the board?

[leaden crow]

Nah

[real cedar]

So how is it connected?

[leaden crow]

It's got a header, you just pull out the USB hub that occupies it

[real cedar]

And you solder the USB 2 to the board.?

[leaden crow]

I can't use the MeshAdv schema because that header doesn't have the full 40 pin wiring. I used this schema and config:
https://github.com/markbirss/lora-starter-edition-sx1262-i2c

[real cedar]

Five 1 watt nodes coming right up.

🤣

Hold my beer. I'm gonna go rev some things and put some PCBs in the manufacturing.

[leaden crow]

It's just slightly different pinout than the last one I made you.

[real cedar]

So I just need to solder the header onto your board that you gave me and move the wires.

That's gonna be very difficult at all.

[leaden crow]

it already has the header soldered, but yeah move some wires

[real cedar]

Do we want to just make a true PCB for these?

I literally can just go fire up Ki-Cad.

[leaden crow]

it's already done, just a sec

https://github.com/wehooper4/Meshtastic-Hardware/tree/main/NebraHat

he provided the gerber if you want to have some made

[prisma saddle]

I cant wait till you guys master this stuff and just make your own nodes/etc and replace/overpower all the current routers and rock the whole state

its bound to happen lol

[real cedar]

Balls

"2W radio is not recomended due to the weak power supply on the Nebra."

[leaden crow]

those 2W radios cook themselves anyway

[prisma saddle]

i dont meen more power.. just that youll have things so fine tuned. will just be better

[leaden crow]

I wouldn't waste your time

[real cedar]

Oh. Wait. So he's not referring to the E22?

Because last I checked, it can go above one W

[leaden crow]

He's referring to this one
https://www.cdebyte.com/products/E22-900M33S
The 2 watt version

[real cedar]

The goal is not to overpower anything. It is to be as optimal and as efficient as possible, which means doing it with as little power as possible and with as few devices as possible.

[leaden crow]

E22-900M30S vs E22-900M33S

[real cedar]

It's quite the task, and I admire everybody taking it on.

Utah that is.

The terrain is much more challenging than elsewhere.

[prisma saddle]

right. wrongchoice of words. just meant i think you guys are really working at it hard

and thats awesome

[real cedar]

😂 You can join in from what I know you're building nodes.

How brave are you?

And what I mean is cliff sides and mud.

[prisma saddle]

lol. sounds fun

[real cedar]

So, what I really want to do is add a router to Mount Olympus. When this endeavor occurs, you're welcome to join me and my friend.

[prisma saddle]

sucks that it has to come to that.. 😦

[real cedar]

But to do so, we need to find a cliffside that requires free climbing to get to.

My buddy and I are pretty good at that, and we're fine to do so. But having extra people around to help us lug equipment up the mountain is not something we would complain about.

😂

Or, here's an idea. Do you want to go put a router up yourself?

It's in a different spot, but a spot I could use a router on nonetheless.

And you can proudly say that you contributed to the architecture of the network haha!

[prisma saddle]

lol. where at?

[real cedar]

I would really like if someone cleverly hid a node at the top of Deseret Peak.

But I need it to have one solid freaking antenna. Because if you do that for me, I can put one node in Nevada and have coverage in Wendover and a lot of the desert and save router placements

It's up to you, though. It's a challenge because it's a well-traveled peak, and it's quite popular, so you would need to hide it well. And that's difficult. But it's also fun.

[prisma saddle]

ahh above grantsville.

[real cedar]

Si se puede!

Something Jacob said last night sparked a thought in my head. It's not coverage that's a problem. It's the reliability of being able to talk to nodes or enough nodes to get to where you need to go. But also not too many. But what came up in my head was that if you did put a router on Deseret, and you had a router on Nelson Peak, and you had a router late on Stansbury, then you would have a pretty solid routing architecture To cover that area reliably, no matter where you were located in any orientation.

Does that make sense? Can someone give me a sanity check?

[prisma saddle]

im no expert.. but that "Seems" legit.

[real cedar]

I'm morbidly curious to try it. And seeing as he's going to put that note up sometime in the next couple weeks, if you put the note I just suggested up sometime in the next week, that could be pretty damn epic and it could be a really good testing ground for the idea. Also, it would be curious to see how it affects Jacob's ability to hop through NPR.

[prisma saddle]

that one could hit npr, but should also hit all of granstville/tooele. so opens that up.. then the other side of the mtn.. and so on.

[real cedar]

More hops or less hops? it would be a good thing to see what happens.

[real cedar]

Precisely what I mean.

[prisma saddle]

aye.

[real cedar]

It also facilitates a nearly direct route from Wendover to Salt Lake City.

[prisma saddle]

yup... you know.. just need someone that has a chopper....

https://tenor.com/view/arnold-schwarzenegger-predator-get-to-the-chopper-get-to-the-choppa-gif-16195562

[real cedar]

Instead of having a bounce from Nevada all the way to desert peak over north to promontory point, all the way back south to Nelson Peak to get into the city... All you would have to do is hit deseret, NPR, or deseret, AUR, since it can see both.

[real cedar]

I have drones, but I don't have messed tasks to cover a job there, to send them to deliver it. But drones also can't attach something to a tree. They don't have the dexterity of a human. So they're rather useless for this application. So yes, find me someone with a big fucking helicopter 🤣

Call up Diesel D.

I know he has a black hawk stored in an airport in North Salt Lake.

I forget the name of it.

[real cedar]

Anyways, are you game? Do you have the hardware?

[prisma saddle]

I just have what you see with my rak nodes.. but can work on building up something more extensive.

[real cedar]

Okay, so... There would be no choice but a one watt node for this location. I can teach you how to build one if you want. They're not as simple.

And I honestly can supply the batteries.

I've got retarded amounts of lithium, and when I say retarded amounts of lithium, that is a vast understatement.

[prisma saddle]

you are the battery master lol

[prisma saddle]

i would love to learn

[real cedar]

So we have some options and I've been talking to the maker of the femto fox. He said he's going to have more in stock very soon.

That's the best option by and large. But if you have an original Raspberry Pi 0,

[prisma saddle]

IT wont be an instant build. will take me a few weeks or so. but im def in. and would love to help out the cause.

casue of work. and life..

[real cedar]

Oh, dude, I totally understand.

So I'll supply the batteries, but what we should figure out is what option you're going to go with, so you can at least get parts shipped.

Let me go see if the best option is in stock

[prisma saddle]

ha ha nope none of those.. 4/5s. but they wont do i know that

[real cedar]

It's not in stock. Okay, well, we're going to need a Raspberry Pi.

And it cannot be a four or a five.

[prisma saddle]

right thought so

[real cedar]

Fortunately for you, a Raspberry Pi 02W is very cheap.

And it's reasonably low power with a reasonable amount of features and it's not painful to use.

So... That probably means I need to give you more lithium batteries. So let me go make a calculation real quick.

@prisma saddle I've got 12 18650s.

That should be enough to power the device for at least five days with no insolation.

[prisma saddle]

that look right? https://a.co/d/hSjwpu9

[real cedar]

Do you know how I figured that out? I have the following knowns:
Power Consumption is 0.85 W (0.75 W for Pi + 0.066 W for E22, rounded up).
Duration without charging available is 7 days = 168 hours. Energy Needed is about 0.85 W × 168 h = 142.8 Wh and With Converter Efficiency (85%): 142.8 / 0.85 = 168 Wh.

Then it's just about sizing the appropriate battery pack.

[real cedar]

That is correct, but I would avoid the Amazon for this. You can go to SparkFun or Adafruit or just about any other more reputable electronic seller.

[prisma saddle]

yup. just quick search to make sure correct one.

[real cedar]

The reason I said that is because I've gotten fake raspberry pis that were kind of crappy, that were sold as legit raspberry pis

[prisma saddle]

the that.

[real cedar]

Firstly, I just wanted to make sure you do not get ripped off.

[prisma saddle]

yup heard that for sure.

[real cedar]

😂

[prisma saddle]

appreciate that.

we want headers on it right?

[leaden crow]

eh, you really should just get femotofoxes

[real cedar]

It's true, it is the better device, but the problem is it's sold out, and it doesn't really seem like he has that in stock yet.

[leaden crow]

Not saying you can't do that with an rpi, but it's way harder to hide a huge solar panel and fuckton of batteries.

and if you have to buy the hardware anyway...

[real cedar]

🤣 You know, he does have a point. It would be astronomically more difficult to hide a node like this, unless we got clever with how we made this node. If you have a 3D printer, we can make this very slim. Unfortunately, we will need a 20-watt solar panel, but I know some smaller ones.

Newpowa chinesium

But they work, and it's the same size as the one at AUR. I wouldn't call it small, but I also would not call it large.

[prisma saddle]

yup i have 2 of them :). printers that is.

[real cedar]

Honestly though, how balls are you? Are you willing to put a pipe on the top of a mountain and hope it doesn't get fucked with?

😂

I'm saying this because I'm absolutely going to do this on Ben lommy. I'm not even gonna hide it. I'm not even going to try.

[prisma saddle]

lol. will prob get covered in snow lol

but hey. lol

[real cedar]

Yeah, that's why I'm gonna put it on a 20-foot pipe.

[prisma saddle]

ha ha.

[real cedar]

And then I'm gonna decorate it with summit art.

And see if it actually works as a disguise.

I'm gonna use the mini bike and haul it up the road on the backside.

[prisma saddle]

lol. family biz used to do those fake tree cell phone towers. lol.

so i understand where ya getting lol.

[real cedar]

You know, you got a damn good point.

You just gave me a horrible idea.

Who's got an old shitty plastic Christmas tree they want to get rid of?

[prisma saddle]

Haha.

not a 20’ one. lol.

[real cedar]

Beautiful, dude I swear, if it's big enough and I anchor it well enough and I somehow solar power a very low power but well done little star on top nobody's gonna fight about that they're gonna find it cool

It might become a fucking tourist attraction. Actually, that might be a bad thing.

One day in the news, famous tourist attraction turns out to be a mysterious radio node.

🤣

[prisma saddle]

ya….. lol. not good there.

[real cedar]

Anyways, we can make a small raspberry pi 0 2w, but that means I'm going to have to spend some time in CAD.

And it would probably have to be 3D printed.

The entire design would literally slap onto the back of a solar panel. I would make it as small as humanly possible.

[prisma saddle]

take an auger up the mountain and pop a 20’ x2” ridgid conduit in it and boom. instant radio tower

[real cedar]

I'll do you one better. Forget the auger. I have a Milwaukee big boy impact driver and I can drive a four-inch auger with that.

Way easier to store and you can just strap the auger on the back of the backpack and go up on a bike.

Honestly, I know people recommend against it, but I don't really like the idea of putting a giant metal pole on a peak.

I think honestly the best bet is strapping a Schedule 80 PVC pipe to a tree.

The reason I say that is because if it's gonna be obvious, you might as well mount it to something sturdy that isn't likely to get completely buried in snow and isn't likely to be immediately struck by lightning.

I don't know. I have a lot of ideas on how to do it because I've been on peaks that have a lot of trees, but I'm starting to wonder how you would do it on a barren peak.

I am very curious to see how Jacob does Stansbury because that could be a model for the rest.

[prisma saddle]

cool ya i get that. was more of a joke. not very practical.

anyway. i’ll work on the pi tomorrow if that is the plan and we can go from there.

[real cedar]

It can be a good plan for now. I don't know when the other option is going to be in stock. This is the option I can provide to you immediately.

[prisma saddle]

oil and when the other comes in stock. il get that too. lol future science projects. lol.

[real cedar]

Anyways, this Thursday on the 999 towards the end of the ride around 1 or 2 a.m. I probably will try to see if I can convert AUR To a router late while you're all in bed.

[real cedar]

Oh yeah, I like your attitude. I'm honestly gonna buy a couple more of myself. I think I might use those for one watt nodes.

I have two of them, but they're promised to certain locations.

@prisma saddle Here is my recommendation on the solar panel.
https://a.co/d/ilG3Jww
@leaden crow saw your nebra

Then you get one of these lol
https://a.co/d/7VLX995

Strap it to the RPI 0 2w 5v.. Power the pi with it and charge your batteries

All you do is wire in your pack

It literally couldnt be easier haha

Then get one of these
https://a.co/d/5399CWy

Honestly. I'd run alpine Linux if your a command-line warrior. (I'm very biased. I fucking love alpine and void) but if you don't care for absolutely minimizing power and dealing with those eccentricities. Raspbian is fine. DISABLE ALL BUT your needed interfaces. Disable and depower wifi and so on.

Do not undervolt. (Your proc can brown out in winter)
You may underclock but it's not saving much

After you have the OS configured install meshtasticd. Get it going.. Tweak the systemD process to hammer and restart always lmfao.. Its up to you weather you reboot the pi. I say don't

I say completely disable all logging
Minimize the system foot print and writes to the SDcard (also minimizes power use)
Set the cpu governor to powersave lol
Disable the GPU. You don't need it
Disable VGA and serial.
MeshtasticD can toggle WiFi on the host system if your configure it correctly I think. I have your remote admin keys in and prepared and backed up.. Then test at home. If it all works. WOOT. Let it sit outside charge and discharge for a few days in client mode.. Once your sure.. Then you have the node hardware ready to go.. Its just about a suitable enclosure and how you mount it

[vital hemlock]

I working on getting my Nebra cleared to sit on top of the city center building. Hoping to have PoE up there. That’d be nice.

[real cedar]

What's the status?

@prisma saddle This bad boy is how you make a polehole on top of a 12,000 foot mountain.

[vital hemlock]

Property management is working through the process. Bureaucracy.

I “might” be better off putting it on top of the UofU main hospital, which is also an option. If we have a preference please speak up. It’ll likely be in client mode. We have enough “unsanctioned” spots I feel like we need a fallback that wont get touched.

[real cedar]

No please do the walker center

Downtown coverage is awful and I was thinking a dense cluster of heltec clients in discrete spots would help bounce the signal out@vital hemlock

[leaden crow]

Why not both? I'll donate one of mine

[real cedar]

@leaden crow
I won the gps lottery

[vital hemlock]

This will be a 1w, so it’ll bounce around too

[real cedar]

That would work too

1 watt client?

[vital hemlock]

Mine comes Saturday, but I’ll be camping

[real cedar]

Damn 1 watt on the walker center as a client would be very lit tbch

That would help down town so much

[vital hemlock]

I can go router late if need be

[real cedar]

Ehhh general coverage is already provided by the routers above. Client would be best. It's the 99% role

I thought router late myself for the heltecs to route out

But then was like nah too many routers haha

[leaden crow]

I don't think the antennas they came with are super great.

[real cedar]

They are kinda trash

Mines worse

[vital hemlock]

Yeesh

[real cedar]

😂

Who are you kidding.. These are helium miners. If these guys could mount a fucking parabolic dish in space to broadcast back and mine they would

[vital hemlock]

I have an Alfa I was planning on using, though a good 3db would potentially be better

[leaden crow]

The helium bros went overboard on the LEDs. These boards light up like a christmas tree.

[real cedar]

I'm literally going to desolder those to reduce power draw

[real cedar]

Imagine 1 watt in a PCB antenna 😂

[broken turret]

What does it look like if you test it with the antenna in free space?

Anything conductive or capacitative near it will mess with the antenna tuning, and as a result invalidate your testing. I can't see all of it in that photo, but it does look like it may potentially be lying on a vehicle dashboard?

[leaden crow]

It is on an Ikea footrest I move to the center of my office. I seem to get the most consistent results that way.

[real cedar]

I have a concrete walled storage closet with absolutely zero metal around in it. That's where I run my tests. On a wooden table in there

Its not really free space but Its a somewhat isolated environment

[prisma saddle]

do the adaptors up/down subtract from the readings?

[prisma saddle]

i good with alpine and linux. just throw the packages needed on and so on.

[prisma saddle]

sounds good so still need what ever we need for lora stuff, and antenna i have the pi/sdcard on order. ill work on the solor panel/waveshare in a few days.

[leaden crow]

You can calibrate the NanoVNA with the adapters in place, so the loss from the adapter is not measured. I don't think I did that in this case, but I have in the past and it's usually inconsequential.

I can tell you with the exact same adapter, calibration and location. The Alfa will measure 1.0 - 1.1 SWR

[prisma saddle]

Cool little tool. might have to be something i pick up one of these days.

[leaden crow]

Super useful, especially because 90% of the stuff I buy is from Aliexpress and you're almost guaranteed to get some bad cables / antennas at some point. My H4 is fine, but I kind of wish I had bought a LiteVNA instead to be able to measure higher frequency stuff.

[real cedar]

Yeah at most connectors add a wee bit of inductance and capacitance. It should be a red flag if it's anything but that case.

[real cedar]

If you are buying new, I highly recommend some of the higher end variants of the NanoVNA, such as the liteVNA, and the LibreVNA.

They use harmonics above 8 to 9 GHz but often you can get a 12 GHz vna working out of those if you know what. Your doing and how to measure that way

I have one that gives up right at about 12.3 GHz

And I gotta say for a pocket warrior item. That's fucking dope

[real cedar]

@leaden crow I have a way for you to do lifepo4 soon! 🤣

My third and last gamble was on 300x lifepo4 18650 size cells at 1800 mah each. Configured in 100x 1s3p packs with a 2A BMS 😂.. I got those for about 108. They are brand new and came from overstock on a solar project that never happened.. Hhahahha

The packs realistically are around 4500 - 4900 mAh each and honestly 1 could power a rak all winter. As I understand it lifepo4 does better than lion in extreme temps

[leaden crow]

You sure about that? I've run LFP batteries in my motorcycles for ~15 years now. They are not good for cold weather. They need heaters if you're trying to charge them, and they have a hard time providing any current when they are cold.

AI Overview
In cold environments, NMC batteries generally offer more balanced performance compared to LFP batteries. While NMC batteries can function well in both low and high temperatures, LFP batteries experience a performance decrease in cold conditions, with capacity reduction and slower discharge rates.

IME they are amazing for battery life though. I have a Shorai I bought in 2011. I put it in my generator when the factory battery died and it's still starting it. Pretty amazing for a 14 year old battery that spent 10 years starting a motorcycle.

[ember torrent]

With looking at building tops, what are your thoughts on the antenna’s range with respect to elevation loss away from say the east bench?

[vital hemlock]

Our mountain top antennas at 5dbi reach the valley floor, the building tops should be fine. Pics like the one above can be misleading. They are correct, just exaggerated.

That said, a 2-3 dbi is my goal for a node on a building

[real cedar]

Huh. I've never had issues with mine and those were power sporta batteties and I've definitely charged them at 11 F before haha

They didn't accept massive Cs of current

But a an amp or 2 was still shoveable

Most of all they performed outstanding in the extreme heat

The BMS on it had a cut off of - 20C though

But yeah you'll plate the lithium slowly

It will kill those batteries over time but honestly it's iot haha

Who cares 🤣

[real cedar]

And yeah man that's why I got one for mine. Never buy another for a long time. I also have one on my minibike and it's how I know it does well in the cold. We ride all winter long during the snow

[ember torrent]

What elevation mountain nodes, so i can better scale that image?

[real cedar]

9-11000 ft

[real cedar]

This is a rather horrible image

Look your 10 dB will do JUST fine on a mtn top. Your antenna placement is 99% of the issue. Your gain is 1%

Focus on placement more than anything haha

[white field]

Yeah you can do the math and it’s only a zone right at the base of the hill that gets reduced gain. For those spots it doesn’t matter tho since they are so close signal will be dramatically stronger.

Optimize for the far nodes with routers.

[real cedar]

💯

You could use a directional at a certain distance and have uniform coverage

[rigid flicker]

@real cedar Did you happen to create any instructions for teaching people how to do this? I might be interested, if so. Just installed one of these. https://store.rakwireless.com/products/fujitsu-mb85rc512t-512-kbit-fram-memory-module-rak15004

[ember torrent]

Quickly scanning previous chats, what is the plan for north of salt lake, i.e., centerville, bountiful, farmington?

[leaden crow]

Some nodes in that area can probably reach AUR.
I have a 1 watt node in a pretty good spot in NSL, where it's at it bounces pretty much everything through NPR.

[prisma saddle]

@real cedar 🙂

[obsidian storm]

Hello! Stoked to get my first client node running in years.

[real cedar]

@rigid flicker not yet

I will sometime soon

But I'm happy to overview what you have questions about

[obsidian storm]

I don't think my house can send

Is that what this is saying?

[real cedar]

If you can see ensigns radio transmitters. You should be good. If you can't you might have to hop through NPR until I get Promontory point up

[real cedar]

Yes sadly. It might be a simple fact that your in your house. A lot if people made a roof node that was client. Kept their others client mute

But knowing where helps us figure out the next router placement

[obsidian storm]

Send me a DM and I'll give you a location

[ember torrent]

I can’t see Ensign, but i do have some optimizing to do next week.

What is NPR?

[prisma saddle]

Nelson Peak Router

[ember torrent]

NPR is a good >25 miles away. Guess I better raise my antenna.

[real cedar]

25 miles is nothing LOL

These easy peasy for lora long fast

But yes antenna placement is more or less usually the issue if your having trouble

@obsidian storm
So I can run line of sight projections for you if you want for various locations. I did for one spot you talked about yesterday. If you want more just send me GPS coords.

If you want to throw up a bunch of clients for your needs definitely can help with that

Also for "tracking" of any sorts I highly recommend your own private channel in index 0 and longfast in index 1. Then you can use your private channel for tracking stuff that runs off

[real cedar]

@prisma saddle @ember torrent @obsidian storm and to all those new to 51. This is not where the routers are located exactly. But these are their peaks. Here are their coverage maps.

AUR (Ensign Peak)
NPR (Nelson Peak)
POTM (Point of the Mountain)
TSTN (Thurston, stuck in medium fast)
ONAQUI (ONAQUI Mtns)
EAGL (Boulter Peak)
OWL (Marys Nipple)

This will change as we have like 6 more proposed I think. If you fall directly in these red zones you have a direct connection. If you don't. You hopefully see a client or two in the valley that can relay rebroadcast your stuff

The key is Controlled and coordinated placement of routers and Router Late's. Clients can be anywhere

[obsidian storm]

If I disconnect from the mesh and reconnect later, does it send me all the backlog of messages?

[real cedar]

No

Not unless you have a node configured to store and forward that you can connect to that resides where people would be

But fortunately I do know where your going and you should be able to have LOS to the node on Marys nipple

I do want to configure a global store and forward with BBS mesh at some point but we need a wide and functional short fast network before I begin to debug BBS issues and getting that across the entire net for the DC801 chat lol but you know.. Time willing

@leaden crow I have 40 18650 LTO chemistry cells at 1500 mah. For RAK nodes I think 4x of them for 6000 mah ought to do since they retain most of their capacity down to - 30 C (testing that right now in the environmental chamber I have access to)

Assembling packs. Will let you know how those fair. I might be snowshoeing this winter 😄

According to their datasheet and the reddit tester madmaxmind.. They do live up to it. And he has been able to safely charge 1.5C at - 25 Celsius. And was able to get about a 12C discharge at the same temp

The draw back. Your boost and buck converter efficiency will affect the draw a good bit. The capacity is lower and the voltage curve is 2.8V down to 1.3V

[leaden crow]

We must have connections through Mary’s Nipple. I just reset my node db on my RV node and it picked up POTM first.
Yep, second node picked up is Solar:4

[leaden crow]

nice!

[real cedar]

You do 😉

Been tracerouting

I have a link to Onaqui but it's spotty

When I do get a trace route

C6U --> C6N --> ONAQUI --> eagle --> Owl --> yall

If you all have 7 hops set I'll be able to talk back and forth

[leaden crow]

I’m not getting traceroute back from POTM. We are direct to Solar:4 though

[real cedar]

Yeah, there's gonna have to be some tweaking. And I think once more routers get up, things will be more streamlined.

Littleton and desert could cut the chain by a node or two.

Prom point the same for me. Stansbury the same for toele

[rigid flicker]

Okay I'll pop in when I've had a chance to look more closely, thank you

[real cedar]

I was thinking of doing the ultimate test with one RAK and those batteries. Peter Sinks

The Dead of winter

Test out that "discharges down to - 65 C" claim

ROFL

It would be hilarious to see if it survived the winter. I bet I can get it to survife 3 to 4 days at Peter sinks without a solar panel 🤣. Maybe this is me having a challenge accepted moment

[prisma saddle]

stick it in the deep freeze ohh -65. nvm lol.

[real cedar]

Lol

Yeah this is Peter sinks. It's more than deep freeze

It is the Arctic weather wise

I'm feeling like 10W solar panels would be enough but maybe for good measure a 25W. Would make it a client mute and out a strategic router_late somewhere

But I gotta get the mesh in minimal hops to Logan first

[leaden crow]

The problem with peter sinks is that it’s a depression. once you’re above it where you’d want an antenna, the temp is not super low.

[real cedar]

Oh yeah the one in the sink would be a client mute