UK - Wales & West

[bold atlas]

Crazy! I’m picking you up no probs!

[bleak kite]

Have you tried sending a message recently? Does it fail? What SNR and RSSI are you getting?

[bleak kite]

If you're seeing that node direct then you should be seeing BRS1 a lot better. Unless that's through BRS1? That RSSI and SNR is just about on the limit of reception. You don't have to get it much better for it to be reliable though. Maybe a slightly better antenna would help, but if you could get a bit more height you may be able to stick with the stock antenna. It looks like I'm due east from you. Is that where you get a good view?

[gleaming trench]

As the 433 node is exactly working well.

Has anyone used a heltec node on 433 for anything other than a tinyGS?

Im trying to find out info to se if I could use it for APRS.

Like this maybe?

https://github.com/richonguzman/LoRa_APRS_Tracker

[worldly shadow]

@gleaming trench I'm not sure it'll be able to receive APRS directly, not sure anyone really uses it on 70cms anyway but while the ICs support stuff other than lora, I don't think AFSK is one of them

They do support other forms of FSK though - so could probably rx pager signals, but that would be illegal of course, no-one would do that! 😏

[gleaming trench]

Someone who isn't me used to have a set up receiving pager signals. Unreal what was actually sent out and received regarding medical stuff from hospitals!

[worldly shadow]

Yeah my friend said there's some wild information out in cleartext there

[gleaming trench]

For sure!

I'll probably get the 433 node set up as another tinyGS for my scout group. Get them to set it up and start receiving satellite info.

[worldly shadow]

Yeah fair enough, I'm going to leave mine on mt for now, just in case mopa decides to work some RF magic

V impressed with tinygs anyway, think I might attempt a more satellite friendly antenna at some point, turnstile or summat

[gleaming trench]

If I had power in the loft I would set up loads of stuff in here but currently I've got a 8m USB going up through the wall where an old TV coax went. Not sure if a splitter would work with the power requirements up there.

I used to have a set up for NOAA and Meteor sats with a V antenna, that was simple to make and worked well!

Capturing stuff like this always blew my mind!

[worldly shadow]

Oh man those images are fantastic

What freq is that stuff on?

Regarding power, I err "borrowed" some from my upstairs lighting circuit

[bleak kite]

I think we could probably get 433 working quite well with external antennas etc, but TBH our 868 mesh works well anyway. I'll probably set up a full time 433 node eventually, on an external antenna, just to use up one of the Heltecs I have. It'll be interesting to see if anyone else ever appears.

[worldly shadow]

I might make up an 868 Yagi in the near future, snr isn't great at the moment

Is your line out to ponty good?

[bleak kite]

Mine?

[worldly shadow]

Yeah

[bleak kite]

RSSI -89 SNR 4.3 at the moment.

[worldly shadow]

Wow

[bleak kite]

I think he lives next door to me.

[worldly shadow]

I'm thinking if I point a Yagi at ponty I should be all good then

[bleak kite]

You'd probably benefit a bit when I get my ass in gear and put my antenna on the Chimney. I lower it down on it's pole in the back garden when the wind picks up. If you could get a good link to Ponty though, that would probably be better.

[worldly shadow]

Either way I think something more directional is needed for sure

For me I mean!

[gleaming trench]

137mhz
All info on here. https://leshamilton.co.uk/MeteorGIS.htm

[bleak kite]

Tick tock tick tock tick tock. I used to hear it in my sleep. I always had a pager data burst line going through the middle. Rarely was it totally clear.

[gleaming trench]

The NOAA ones had that. I've got recordings of it someplace. Might try and set it back up again one day!

[bleak kite]

It was good. I built the kit that Maplin Electronics did, back in the day. Downloading the Kepler data off bulletin boards and waiting for the next pass. Brilliant.

[gleaming trench]

That software package runs everything automatically. Just make the antenna, plug in SDR download software and away you go!

SSTV from the ISS is also another! I remember First time I heard that and received an image from it. My 7 year old boy wouldn't believe me when we were outside at night watching it go over listening to this sound on a UV5R and using a decoder app.

I do love this radio stuff!

[gleaming trench]

Lansdown node now on the roof of the building but currently on old mesh.

[worldly shadow]

Taped within an inch of its life! Good work mate, will see if I can pick it up

[gleaming trench]

Look how feeble it looks up the mast!

[rustic cave]

use a drone to attach it to the mast? (i say jokingly)

[regal prawn]

Myself and a mate put a node on a drone and got quite a nice range from it!

[gleaming trench]

To be honest, all the equipment is there to climb it!

[indigo imp]

not just any tape, sniper tape!

[gleaming trench]

Moved my TinyGS to the loft this morning. I'm using a DIY ground plane for 433mhz. It's picked up nearly double the amount of satellites than yesterday.

Before it was through my coliner at garage roof level.

[worldly shadow]

Oh wow - I got close to but never past 100 in a day - with the node in the loft. Also with a diy 1/4 wave

[worldly shadow]

👀 explain

Is that tape what snipers use to do sniping and whatnot?

[indigo imp]

and covering anything you own with to look ally

matte green fabric tape, is good for... taping stuff

[gleaming trench]

Ended up with 257 packets in the end.

[gleaming trench]

It's actual use was for covering up holes on a NBC suit! Most people used it to make stuff green.

[worldly shadow]

Ah pretty good for sealing stuff then!

[gleaming trench]

Yeh you would hope so haha!

[gleaming trench]

I wondered why I wasn't getting anything from it!

[indigo imp]

Not enough tape!

[tacit edge]

I'll have mine on on the way to Hereford thisafternoon

[rustic cave]

😂 Now got meshtastic working on the hackrf!

[indigo imp]

now that's an interesting sentence, as a dedicated FW or an app?

[rustic cave]

its just a bit of fun. currently using gnuradio, and python, its not pretty but have it tx/rx datastreams.
In the USA they want to try and leverage SDRs (maybe something more powerful than hackrf) to build frequency bridges. Still early days but keep an eye on crankylinux's repo: https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/meshtastic_sdr

[somber basalt]

Hi. Just a quick note to say Hi!

I'm new to meshtastic. Got 3 devices so far. 2 Heltec V3s and 1 T echo.

SNWY BASE, SNWY 1 and SNWY 2.

[regal prawn]

Where abouts are you based?

[somber basalt]

Magor / Undy South Wales

[somber basalt]

Where are you from?

[regal prawn]

I'm based in Bath

[gleaming trench]

I've got two of those on my node list try and send out a message on longfast.

[gleaming trench]

Can you see my node in Lansdown?

[regal prawn]

Sadly not. Bath has too many hills for my liking! I'll get a yagi antenna one day and have a play

I'm the two down towards the south

[gleaming trench]

Ah yeh that's way out of line of site. Need that node back up in the mendips!!

[somber basalt]

Sent a message yesterday no replies

[past badge]

Howdy all! Been out of the loop for a while, what's new!?

[tacit edge]

Its all over

[quartz oriole]

2-1... it is now. 🤪

[gleaming trench]

Kept node running on the secret squirrel mesh and nothing for a few weeks now.

Standard longfast is as usual on its ass. I can communicate with nodes that are 1 hop away.

Trying a node on MediumFast now to see if its any better.

[past badge]

Sad times. I just made a new node as I haven't had my original for a while

[gleaming trench]

Try mediumfast see if it is any good.

I have a 433 node set up and actually got a cloud with a tick today as well.

[bleak kite]

I think the MediumFast route is going to be short lived on main mesh. I can't see why they don't reduce the traffic, like we did. They will suffer with a 5db drop in link budget, and only gain 3 times the bandwidth. They could have all reduced their traffic by 70% and kept LongFast. Even better, reduce it to 10% of it's current level, and probably have a half decent mesh.
They all say it's working better than before, but are currently all in small meshes. Like LongFast was at the start.

[gleaming trench]

Not sure if anyone has changed over in Bristol yet. Not seen anyone yet. I've put the Lansdown node over to it as well today. I'll see if that picks up anything overnight.

[somber basalt]

I've also changed to medium fast today. Just seeing my own nodes at the moment. Let's see what happens.

[viral anchor]

Got 3x nodes across central worcester on Medium Fast and working very well, loads of the other Worcester and surrounding nodes are still on Long Fast

[gleaming trench]

Nothing up in Lansdown on medium fast.

[regal prawn]

I could never reach you on long fast tbh 😑

I've been tempted to get a yagi and just point it at Bristol but I'm bit even sure the line of sight is there. I can sometimes get Chippenham and more East so maybe I just abandon the north

[rustic cave]

Howdy all, been awhile. Some of us are trying Med-Fast in Swansea, problem is it needs mass-adoption, and i think many are choosing to stay on LongFast

[gleaming trench]

Lansdown node came down for update. The battery had a tiny hole in it and was giving off some funky smells!

[worldly shadow]

Hah, the old li-ion in a bucket, not seen / had to do that in a while!

Was solar overcharging it I wonder?

2.4 has been released, seems they're enforcing reduction of timed packets automatically

[gleaming trench]

Standard SOP for small battery fires for work. When the VOI warehouse went up a few years ago we were filling biffa bins up with water and dumping the batteries in them.

The battery had an over/under charge protector on it.

[somber basalt]

After 24hrs just one node on medium fast. MnsNet01.

Good distance though.

[gleaming trench]

I've still got nothing over the bridge!

[bleak kite]

I tried putting a couple of my nodes on MediumFast for 24 hours, but receivied nothing. It wouldn't receive my work van, which is parked about a mile away from my house. I get a good signal from it on LongFast, but it never showed up on MediumFast. I had to drive really close to my house before I could receive anything.
I think the theoretical 5db loss of MediumFast is actually a lot worse in practice.

[gleaming trench]

Yes it's not worked for me really.

Got Skjo on MedFast but nothing else. Also like your testing, the range is crap.

I'm away this weekend so see if anything pops up when I'm back.

[gleaming trench]

Nothing over the weekend on Medium Fast.

I went to Newquay for the weekend and picked up 1 node on LF near Cullumpton on the way back but nothing else the whole way down. Didn't pick anything else up until Weston Super Mare.

Home node is back on West and Wales net.

433 node has 3 others on.

433 node list

[bleak kite]

The bottom one is mine, Donny the Dealer is SSSQ's, no idea who 7e44 is. I only managed to get SSSQ's using my 70cm Yagi ages ago. I've not tried recently. My node is just stuck on the windowsill with stock antenna at the moment.

[bleak kite]

I was in Liskeard a couple of weeks ago. Received a couple of nodes in Plymouth, but sent DM's and LongFast messages over the week I was there, but no replies. I even took a node with me up near the main TV transmitter on Cardon Hill on Bodmin Moor, but still only received the 2 in Plymouth. I think Meshtastic is quite dead in some areas.

[gleaming trench]

This is just a homemade ground plane in the loft. Never had a reply on it. Just the tick in the cloud.

[gleaming trench]

I looked at all the meshtastic maps and the here doesn't seem to be any down that neck of the woods.

I always seem to be able to see a node in CorfeMullen

[rustic cave]

Just to let you know, we struggled to adopt MF in Swansea, so we went back to LF. We noticed the mobile apps are pushing people to update their firmware, the changes in 2.4.0 look promising to improve the situation..... now we'er just waiting on people updating their firmwares. A few more of the HAMs have purchase 433 nodes, so we will look to built out a 433 mesh in coming weeks (pending deliveries from china)

[somber basalt]

I might give 433 a go.

I went back to LF at the weekend. My node list is still really small. First time I had over 100. This time about 5. The only difference is that I’m running 2.4

And I turned MqTT off straight away

[gleaming trench]

If the 433.doesnt work out for you, you can always turn it into a tinyGS node.

[bleak kite]

How do you rate TinyGS. I set a 433 node up for it a while ago, but was disappointed that it just does it's own thing, and we have no input into it? It was fascinating to start with, but after a while, I lost interest. Was I missing something?

[gleaming trench]

It's just another experiment type thing for me.

They did have it so you could transmit through some of the satellites but that is not a function at the moment. If that ever comes back then that would be great!

For now it's just set and let it do its thing and see how far away it can receive.

That's the furthest for me so far.

[somber basalt]

Amazing what these ESP32's can do

[somber basalt]

Do you need an external aerial for TinyGS?

[bleak kite]

That would be cool, transmitting through a satellite. I'll probably put one of my Heltec's back as a TinyGS node one day. After our 433 mesh flops 😉

[gleaming trench]

Mine is into a diamond X30 about 2m above the ground. I did have it in the loft on a home made ground plane and it works loads better outdoors.

[rustic cave]

yep fascinting for a while, now its a meshtastic 433 node, I found you needed the right antenna, the one that came with the sweet spot was 466, guess cater for the doppler, but the slight bigger antenna i bought was smack on 420-430, so was useless for tinygs

[somber basalt]

Not sure I’ll put anything up with my telescopic aerial “tuned” to 433mhz

[gleaming trench]

Has everyone updated firmeware to 2.4?

[regal prawn]

Not on my main node until it's out of alpha

[bleak kite]

Only keep mine on Beta after issues with previous Alphas. Is there anything exciting in 2.4?

[gleaming trench]

Nothing noticed different yet.

I wonder how many nodes out there are 'dead' I DMd every node within 10km that I have never spoken to before and got nothing back last night

[bleak kite]

There must be loads of nodes plugged in and forgotten about. I suspect a few have no contact with their node anymore after the latest app updates. I lost contact with my BRS3 node. App said I needed to update node firmware to use. Had to get it back down and update firmware.

[regal prawn]

The iOS app? My friend in bath has been unable to send messages on the latest version of iOS on his phone

[bleak kite]

This was on the Android app. I guess it would have effected IOS app as well. It looked like it was done to force you to update old node firmware.

[quartz oriole]

I will later.

[rustic cave]

code clean up, increased telemetry and node_update default timings, got rid of router_client.

[indigo imp]

increased telemetry

[rustic cave]

as in increased the default timings to 1 hour instead of 30mins

the devs basically snuck in half way measures of all the stuff we complain about

[indigo imp]

Ah cool

[somber basalt]

Hi mate. Received your message this morning.

[gleaming trench]

Is any receiving ant messages from me? I send out a morning and evening every day and no reply at all

[bleak kite]

Are these messages you are sending on old mesh? I see these every day, and normally say good morning (either BRS3 or MOPm). I don't see anything on our mesh.

[gleaming trench]

I send out on both at the moment and I've never got anything back.

Let me do both now.

The antennas are very close to each other I wonder if they are interfering with each other's signals.

[bleak kite]

I'm not seeing your message on W&W, but saw it on Old Mesh. I wondered if the two meshes interfered with each other. They're very close in frequency.

I can't see your node at all on W&W.

[gleaming trench]

Just moved the antenna so they are opposite ends of the loft.

Sent out a message on both now

[somber basalt]

I've received a couple from you this morning and replied. I DM'd you. If I get a tick does that just mean a node near to me have received it? Not that you've received it?

[gleaming trench]

A tick and cloud is it's been received by a node.

A person and a tick means it's been received by the actual person

Just sent out DMs to the closest five nodes to me. Only one I get a confirmed receipt tick man from is one I've got in Stockwood and one from a node that is 300m away from me.

[bleak kite]

I received your DM on MOPm. I replied, but didn't get man with tick, just cloud with tick. I tried DMing you on W&W, but only cloud tick. Last time I received your node on W&W was 2 days ago.

[somber basalt]

Cheers for that. Just a cloud when I DM you. On iOS I get "acknowledged by another node". I've got three nodes in the house so that's easy enough. You are 3 hops away too.

[gleaming trench]

That worked! I keep all my other nodes off in my house now. Only one permanently on is the one in the loft.

[bleak kite]

Do you think they were interfering with each other?

[gleaming trench]

Seems like that. Working well now!

Wonder if they were an exact wavelength apart

[somber basalt]

From SNW1 in Wales to JmrJ 3 hops 😄

[bleak kite]

I've temporarily put my BRS3 node on to VeryLongSlow. Andy Kirby is doing some experimenting, so if anyone wants to have a play I'll leave it on for a while.
Freq = 867.5 MHz.
Preset = VERY_LONG_SLOW
Because it's smaller bandwidth, it is legal on this frequency with VLS settings apparently.

[bleak kite]

I did wonder whether the node I left on old mesh was causing issues to W&W. I've got it on VLS temporarily (as above), but will probably just leave W&W at home, and keep old mesh when travelling.

[gleaming trench]

Moved over

[bleak kite]

Can't see you yet. Mind you, I've seen not seen anyone since swapping it yesterday.

[somber basalt]

I received a "Test VLS" message from an unknown station. There's noone in my node list on very long slow yet

[gleaming trench]

On VLS is the default freq being used?

[somber basalt]

I changed mine to what Mopatops said earlier. 867.5

[bleak kite]

That looks like what I was typing. It will take a while for node lists to populate I guess.

[gleaming trench]

Nothing out there yet!

[bleak kite]

I've just swapped over nodes BRS1 and BRS3, and am now getting a tick on VLS. So there must be someone out there.......
Not showing on node list yet though.
Edit: Not getting tick anymore 😕

[bleak kite]

Original post from Andy Kirby for reference.

If anyone wants to do very-long-slow tests I have a node on 867.500Mhz. Antenna is an 8dbi Yagi pointing South towards London.

[bleak kite]

Still not seeing you on node list. I thought we tried VLS ages ago and could get contact. I reckon there must be something else interfering on the frequency we're using.

[gleaming trench]

Yeh nothing for me over night.

I'll fire up my SDR later and see

Flying to Turkey at 1600 I'll take a node with me on the standard mesh. I'll ping our some messages on take off.

[somber basalt]

I don't know if you got my reply. After circling Clevedon you shot due East

[gleaming trench]

I was pinging out messages the whole flight. Last node I got was in Germany.

Although I got a cloud tick over Austria.

[bleak kite]

Did you have the node near the window? I didn't see anything, but forgot my normal mesh node was still on VLS 🙁

[gleaming trench]

No it was just on the floor under the seat in my bag. It was laying flat so it transmitted facing down essentially!

[bleak kite]

Wow. That's quite impressive. I thought it wouldn't stand a chance unless it was pressed up against a window. Then I thought you might get some strange looks.

[gleaming trench]

Yeh that would look odd haha.

[rose geyser]

https://meshmap.net/

[gleaming trench]

Heading back from Turkey tonight. ETA Bristol 0200 if anyone is still up!

[empty marlin]

I just loaded the app for the first time in months, apparently I have to update my firmware. If I'm going into the loft to retrieve the units there's no way they are going back up. When I did look at the messages it was a dull as feck.

It was mildly amusing, but almost any radio systems better than this.

[bleak kite]

You wouldn't want to use it in an emergency, would you? 😂
I think the forced update is to try and improve the mess. I think it might be working too. It appears a lot more usable recently.

[rose geyser]

It's Still Early Days And Kinda Grew A Little Too Fast For The Development Speed.

Also As For Updates You Can Disable Auto Updates In The Google Play Store / Apple App Store So Your Mobile App Will Always Be Useable With Your Nodes Current Firmware As Long As They Were Updated Close Together Originally.

Alternatively, If You Want To Keep Updates But Don't Want To Go Up The Loft. You Can Improve The Bluetooth Antenna On Some Devices To Increase The Range Then Flash Firmware Updates Via Bluetooth.

[bleak kite]

I see a few messages from you at 3:18, 3:19 and 3:20. Looks like you were just over Keynsham. I was a bit too asleep to see them live 😴

[regal prawn]

Not a chance I'd reply to that one I'm afraid!

[gleaming trench]

I picked up nodes starting from Switzerland. South East of England I picked up loads!

Something's changed since I've been away! Just had a three way convo on the old mesh!

[bleak kite]

It definitely appears to work a lot better. Maybe the forced updates have cured a lot of the legacy issues. Channel util is a lot lower than it used to be.

[gleaming trench]

it's working surprisingly well!

I've got another amateur radio operator onboard as well in Bristol

He lives. In stockwood.

[somber basalt]

Did you get my messages? It difficult to know who is getting what

I do a traceroute from me to a guy 4.5km away in Wales. The message goes 12km across the river to England and bounces back 12km into Wales

[rustic cave]

traceroute is unreliable

other news the problem brothers in swansea started up again, more gps and time spoofing, messing up peoples receipt of messages, as the apple apple sorts by time, and the nodes may take a new time from the bad nodes. Joy!

[gleaming trench]

nothing heard from you. I will ping you a DM now.

[somber basalt]

Thanks. Unfortunately nothing. Last message I saw was you saying that you were in bed

I’m building an outside node at the moment. Just waiting on a few bits.

also gave SNWY TWO to a friend in Bristol.

[gleaming trench]

Not sure if anyone is getting me but I can see you lot!

[bleak kite]

Just sent a message on LongFast. I didn't notice a message from you, there may have been, but forgot how poor the web client is.

[gleaming trench]

Left Ashton court now. I'll see what I can pick up on way back

[gleaming trench]

My home node picked up the lot!

[somber basalt]

Me --> MnsNet01-NSC --> Magor ->bit.ly/magr --> Meshtastic Cardiff_West --> BRS3 Bristol --> Cydertastic --> _jonesmrjones.co.uk_M7TAS

[indigo imp]

appears I need to climb on to the roof 😦

or renable BT over wifi and stand upstairs

[icy void]

New node in Bath

[regal prawn]

Welcome! Are you Fairfield park way?

[icy void]

Picking up BA1 and BA2

[icy void]

Yep that’s me

[regal prawn]

I'm BA2 my friend is BA1 but he's not on discord

[icy void]

Im battery powered for now. Going to plug in for more established signal. And a better antenna

[regal prawn]

My first purchase after getting a heltec starter kit was a better antenna!

[icy void]

What did you go for ?

Should be ok I guess.

[regal prawn]

Some rubbish of amazon, then a decent one from PiHut similar to yours. Then a bunch of ones from Aliexpress

I know a lot of purists may say the cheap ones aren't tuned but for the price they're OK for me!

https://thepihut.com/products/lora-antenna-with-pigtail-868mhz-white

My friend and I can get from Victoria Park to odd down with a pair of these which isn't bad. Nodes are loft mounted. I've since upgraded to a cheap ebay one.

I can definitely say it's better. And I'm happy for £20

[icy void]

I’ve got a yagi which I might test with at some point

Also might go sit on solsbury hill soon and see what I can pick up

[regal prawn]

I'm tempted by one as I know there loads of people in Bristol that I want to try and get, there also a bunch in Chippenham so you should get those from solsbury Hill

[icy void]

For sustained power - do you just plug in usb-c ?

[regal prawn]

We had a person with a very expensive antenna go camping near the Mendip transmitter a few months back. We got Bristol, South Wales and down to weston super mare. That was fun!

[regal prawn]

Yes. Try and use a USB A to C cable as those are better for getting power transformers to just output 5v from the start. If you use a C to C cable there can be glitches and some units get fried with over voltage. It's probably fine but it's good to be cautious

What yagi do you have?

[icy void]

A folding one. I used it for a bit when doing RTL-SDR

[indigo imp]

Well that went well

[worldly shadow]

I use the cli with serial, since last 2 or 3 firmwares it hasn't been able to set all the values, WiFi is one of them. My nodes have failed back to BT reliably though

That being said I'm using yaml, not individual options

[indigo imp]

that might be why my meshinfo wasn't being updated since last time I updated FW

wouldn't take the new values

[nova fog]

I just started a node in Salisbury but there aren't any nearby 😭

[gleaming trench]

Can't believe that actually having a conversation on the mesh! It's consistent! Is.it finally fixed? Looks like the overloading of telemetry has stopped

[quartz oriole]

It seems to be working ok-ish near me, but I'm really not seeing much chatter on the LF primary channel.

Apparently I saw one of your nodes at some point..

[gleaming trench]

Its only the same 5/6 people chatting but it's good so far!

[gleaming trench]

What is your location?

[quartz oriole]

Basingstoke.

[gleaming trench]

Thats not bad picking up from here. Unless you picked me up the other day when I was going to/coming back from Holiday?

[indigo imp]

I had one up in andover for a bit but had about 3 hits in a few months and they were all people driving along the 303

[nova fog]

Salisbury is in a valley and I've got plenty of houses around me with no prospect of a high mount so I doubt it will do much. Still, fun to do nevertheless

[quartz oriole]

Could be.. I didn't get a location.

[indigo imp]

there are some really good spots that would cover a lot of the area... they all have phone/bowman/tetra towers on them

[somber basalt]

There a large mobile phone mast near to me. I’m tempted to scale up it and install a node up there 🤟

There’s so much stuff on it I don’t think anyone would notice

[quartz oriole]

I have a sneaky suspicion that might be illegal... 😅

[rose geyser]

Just Put A Label On It Saying Property Of The M.O.D. No One Will Question It 🤣

[rustic cave]

Dude on exmoor (EX2) has opened up the south west (default 868 freqs)

[somber basalt]

I took the dog for a walk this morning and had a look. There is a massive camera mounted on the top. I wouldn’t be happy if it overlooked my house

[rose geyser]

😅 Peeping Tom Has Gone High Tech.

As A Side Note You Just Wear A High Vis And A Hard Hat When You Go Near. No One Will Question It.

[tender cairn]

Hi. Just added my first node, I'm in north Swindon, so probably just outside of the area for this group, but thought I'd say hi anyway!
Just seeing the one other node currently, figure I probably need to optimise my node somewhat!

[somber basalt]

Hi mate. I'll keep a lookout for a Swindon node 👍

[gleaming trench]

I have not seen Swindon yet. Mesh is working well in Bristol and gets the odd message from Wales.

[somber basalt]

Upgraded my battery capacity on my T Beam

[analog tundra]

Looks good!

[hollow tiger]

Do you have a parts list?

[somber basalt]

Just found this amazing item on AliExpress. Check it out! ￡2.41 | Solderless 18650 Lithium Battery Box DIY Assembly Kit 21700 Batteries Holder Snap-on Infinite Combo Series Parallel Circuit
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EIWoDmp

I got 3 pairs of the 18650 ones. I soldered a couple of jumper wires onto the back of the T Beam

Got the batteries off Amazon

The battery holder comes is pairs and they just slot together

[hollow tiger]

Cheers!

I’m at the top of Brandon hill Snwy one , I reset my nodeDB and yours is the first to pop up!

[somber basalt]

Brandon Hill in Bristol? That’s pretty good. I live fairly high up in Undy Wales. I can see over the river Severn towards Bristol.

[rose geyser]

Knowing How Power Hungry The V3 Is. That Will Last At Most 6hrs 😁 😁 😁

[somber basalt]

Fixed the Bluetooth antenna on my Heltec V3 so I’ve wired it up to the battery pack and put it in the loft. My new makeshift Bluetooth antenna works better than the original and can get a sign anywhere in the house from the loft.

I had them running on WiFi and neither any good for power consumption.

[somber basalt]

I’ve ordered a Heltec T114 so might try that in the loft. Assuming they fix the Bluetooth problems.

[rose geyser]

Let Me Know How It Goes. Been Eyeing One Up Myself. Also Very Much Love How It's Got A Handy Connector For GPS Board

[somber basalt]

and a solar input

[rose geyser]

Yeah That's What I Love About My RAK. This Defo Heltec Trying To Compete 🤣

[somber basalt]

Never seen so many “throbbing” nodes before

[indigo imp]

what does the throbbing indicate?

[somber basalt]

It’s a node that you’ve very recently heard

[thick dew]

I was on Glastonbury Tor last Saturday. I could see nodes all the way from Cardiff to Exmouth!

I live in Cornwall, so not in the area very often ;/

[hollow tiger]

Yeah Bristol, i can see your node from my bedroom also

[gleaming trench]

Ref the convo on the mesh.

This is what my desktop node has picked up from my car GPS node over the past new months driving about.

[indigo imp]

Bouncing off the Troposphere or do we really have LOS to Bournemouth?

[gleaming trench]

I definitely get them so not sure!

[indigo imp]

Just one and I’d assume misconfigured location, but not 4

Traceroutes haven’t returned anything

m0eyt appears to actually be in the southhampton area so could be legit

as is M0MRP

could be going through Tarr Exmoor 2 with a hidden repeater

[gleaming trench]

I have never seen any messages from them. Just seen them.

[somber basalt]

I can see that cluster from Wales too

[somber basalt]

Lasted for about 4 days with six 18650 batteries.

[somber basalt]

When I reapplied power, the Heltec started charging the power pack but didn’t start up itself. I had to go into the loft and press the reset button to wake it up.

[worldly shadow]

What was the voltage on the battery?

[somber basalt]

Good question.. Can't remember. 3.something. After I reset, it was over 4v again

reporting about 45%

Its been on charge all day. seems to have levelled off at 92% - 4.09V

[worldly shadow]

Ah fair enough, only reason I ask is that mt firmware will turn itself off if it thinks v is too low, and then will periodically check to see if it's "safe" to turn back on

[somber basalt]

clever stuff

[somber basalt]

The Heltec showed 4.09v. I’ve connected the T-Beam to the same power pack and it’s showing 3.8v. Tested with Fluke 3.8v. The T-beam might be going back in the loft.

[regal prawn]

My heltec let a 18650 discharge to 2.61v and isn't charging it up anymore. If I take it out I can charge it in an external charger. Would a discharge protection strip help?

[somber basalt]

I've swapped the Heltec out for the T-Beam now. See how that goes for now. The Heltec was recharging the battery pack fine. It had just shut itself down.

Maybe the 6 batteries was a little bit too much for the little BMS?

[somber basalt]

With six batteries I can’t get over 3.86v. Just connected a single battey and will see what happens. It’s already showing 4.17 which is what I was expecting.

[gleaming trench]

It couldn't handle the juice!

[rustic cave]

Just seeing these, the was some guy in exmoor with a node, the hop is through glastonbury, and yes you can reach bournemouth and southampton. traceroute is crap, messages unlikely, but you can sent a weak message changing your node name

used to work with Paul m0eyt, nice bloke

[gleaming trench]

What is everyone currently 'seeing'

[somber basalt]

I need a bms which does pass through. Charges and supplies voltage at the same time.

[icy void]

Who’s C 00_d?

[regal prawn]

Me using a spare heltec to charge a big lithium battery 🤣

[icy void]

Ah haha

[regal prawn]

I had intended to pair of with my phone but it was on the other side of the room and I cba to check the pin!

[icy void]

Finally got my new antenna. Got the wrong ipex cable and then couldn’t fit it into the case. All sorted now. So hopefully some range tests soon

[regal prawn]

Are you Larkhall/ Fairfield ?

[icy void]

Yep

[somber basalt]

@gleaming trench

[gleaming trench]

Sweet. It's indoors at the moment. Need to get it back on the roof again!

[worn ember]

From C3PO

[somber basalt]

Very odd still. Message goes from Wales to England to Wales to England.

[bleak kite]

Traceroot and hops are very un-reliable. It doesn't help with the algorithm that Meshtastic uses. It tries to get the message as far as possible by using the weakest nodes first. The thinking being that the weakest nodes are the furthest away, but not taking into account that it could be weak because it is in a poor location, or a poor setup.
It also won't see a repeater node. There are a couple of repeaters in our area, and it can make it look like you get a direct connection, but actually you are going through a repeater.

[somber basalt]

Thanks. Very interesting.

[somber basalt]

Some far away nodes showing

[gleaming trench]

Wonder how they are reaching.

My home node did a full reset last night and it's slowly building up the list again. I've got nodes on there I've not seen/heard before so either they are brand new or i couldn't get them before?

[late quest]

Afternoon folks. Just getting into the mesh and thought I would say hi. I am in Chepstow.

[indigo imp]

is your node a77c?

[late quest]

no Im 5c98 but I think something is wrong because I cant sent any messages (probably user error)

[indigo imp]

Any other nodes showing in your list

[late quest]

yeah i have 10 showing.

[indigo imp]

that's a good start at least

[late quest]

Might have something to do with the message I keep getting “max transmission reached”?

[bleak kite]

Hi KBox. Max transmission reached means you aren't being received by any nodes. Your node has tried 3 times (IIRC) and not heard a reply from anyone. You may need to have a play around with your node placement. Chepstow is covered quite well by my BRS1 repeater (in Bristol), although you won't see this in your node list as it's in repeater mode, but will open up Wales & West to you when you get it. Can you post a screen grab of the nodes you are receiving?

[late quest]

This is what I’m seeing

[indigo imp]

odd you're getting me and not any of JMJ's

normally only have los to his

[bleak kite]

You're seeing nodes that we can also see, so it's not like you're only receiving very local nodes. Where have you got your node positioned? Line of sight is a must for these frequencies, so try and place it where you have a the best horizon view.
This is a map of the coverage of Chepstow from Bristol, so if you're anywhere in the red areas you should get good access the water.

[late quest]

I currently have it taped to my bedroom window upstairs. Would being near the bridge have any effect on it?

[bleak kite]

I wouldn't have thought the bridge would get in the way. It's normally hills that cause the problems. You could try moving it to other windows. Outside is usually better, but I've a node in a window on another mesh that receives a node in Pontypool directly 43km away no problem. If you can get line of sight to a node in a good position, it will open up everyone else.
Try moving it to other locations, and send a message every time you move it. Nodes don't transmit very often, so you can't just rely on what you see on the nodes list.

[gleaming trench]

Not seeing anything from you @late quest something is odd last few days. Mesh does is doing some odd things.

[bleak kite]

It has been a bit odd. It appeared to be working really well a few weeks ago, but has started to be a bit temperamental again.

[late quest]

Ok. I’ll try moving it tomorrow. I must admit I’m confused how I can see some other nodes but not able to send messages.

[late quest]

So am I not the only one having issues at the minute?

[bleak kite]

It's a quirk of the mesh. Nodes send telemetry information beacons on a regular basis. You only need to receive one of those messages, and that node then appears in your list. But it could have been the 100th time that node transmitted it's beacon, and it just so happened that the planets aligned and you received it. It's actually more likely a mobile node in someone's car that created a path, or someone out walking on the hills. You'll know by looking at your node list how long ago you saw that node. If it's hours old, then you were lucky, just that once.
Actually contacting people on your node list is a different matter. We see users in Southampton on the list, but have never been able to get a message to them. Some days it works better than others.

[bleak kite]

Are you actually seeing any of the messages being transmitted?

[late quest]

No not seeing any messages. That actually makes a bit of sense, thank you for the explanation. I will make this work lol

[late quest]

Would I be right in thinking that if I had 3 devices that were quite close I could have my own private comms?

[indigo imp]

Is that a coverage map or the weather radar?

[bleak kite]

Yes. They mesh with each other. You can then set up a private channel, and only those with the key can see the messages.

[indigo imp]

ahoy radio nerds, need assistance with a feesibility study
Son would like to be able to talk to his friend with a walkietalkie, the ones they've tried were 'kids' ones so cut out after about 200m,
LOS map between our house and theirs

would this be possible with a licence free handheld?
and is there any way to encrypt/protect their comms so only they could hear/talk to each other?

(on a budget, otherwise they're getting some bean tins and a really long string)

[tropic mason]

Terrible response, given the context, but you probably just want something that goes over the internet 😅

[indigo imp]

...wow I'm dumb 😂

[tropic mason]

It's less than a mile, PMR446 may work (especially if they both go upstairs to gain some height), but it won't be great (as shown in your diagram) and won't be encrypted

[indigo imp]

I can literally build that

[tropic mason]

Maybe put this in a box with a PTT button, and set up a SIP server: https://github.com/sikorapatryk/sip-call (any text message support obviously MUST use Meshtastic)

[indigo imp]

awesome, thank you

[gleaming trench]

Interesting 'metrics' screen on Android now.

The one above is the node at my home address. Seems to be busy!

This one is at Lansdown and seems quiet!

[gleaming trench]

Emojis coming on the display now!

[somber basalt]

Thats from me 🤣

[rustic cave]

haha, you havnt updated in awhile! think v2.3.9 when i stuck those in. few weather and smileys, mainly the reaction emojis from the ios app

[regal prawn]

The official aliexpress heltec store is great. Delivery is about 7 days give or take. I believe it's their official online storefront as the recent T114 replacements were hassle free through Ali

[regal prawn]

Definitely go for an upgraded aerial! If you don't, it'll be the first thing you want to do! The kits usually come with a very small one which will have about 500m range in my experience. You can get a few km with those 5dbi ones.

Just make sure they're for 868mhz or whatever matches your heltec

[tropic mason]

I managed over 1km with the stock Heltec V3 antenna. But with a new antenna the furthest confirmed regular direct contact is nearly 5km.

I've randomly had nodes from much farther away appear briefly when the stars align just right

(please don't attempt to disillusion me about the impact of star alignment on RF signals)

[gleaming trench]

That's not bad. What type of location are you in?

[balmy osprey]

I didnt realise how much being indoors would limit range

im the CrM0 node using the private-hw port id as im testing a port i made for my older heltech wireless stick

(never actually had lora work well with it when i was using the things network)

[balmy osprey]

Currently planning a Fixed Pi based node as a repeater

[gleaming trench]

Saw your node on the list @ceri

[tropic mason]

Rural

[balmy osprey]

there are quite a few nodes

[balmy osprey]

currently trying to debug my node, are the fireworks affecting the range tonight?

[gleaming trench]

Is everyone seeing the messages from Malvern?

[balmy osprey]

im not

[gleaming trench]

A nide called Portex

[balmy osprey]

ah, i see it

2afc?

[balmy osprey]

my main node is offline while i wait for silicone to cure

[balmy osprey]

Got a ping from a node in Bournemouth, not enough to get the name or hops

[balmy osprey]

From the morning messages i seem to be struggling to recive some messages, didnt recive the ones from BS11 Mesh and BB-8

i did see C3PO

[balmy osprey]

wondering if one of these might improve my range, currently using this that came with the waveshare https://www.waveshare.com/product/accessories/adapters-cables-antennas/antennas/868-915m-magnet-mount-antenna.htm

which is supprisingly good

although i am going to try making a ground plane antenna again, just ran into the problem of the SMA connector i was soldering to melting the 3d printed plug

[balmy osprey]

i feel there are a lot of router nodes in south wales that dont really seem to be in suitable router locations

[balmy osprey]

i havent tried yet, but i also wanted to get a few more opinions

its mainly NPTS and Pontypool that are ? to me

as NPTS is like at 7m in a flat area, which while it does have pretty good line of sight to the coast, its not very high, and the router modes are really intended to be high https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/tips/#avoid-routerand-repeater

I cant work out where the pontypool node is, but given the geography there, i think its ok

[frosty mulch]

I wonder how it would be possible to "get the message" around. I suppose as people upgrade their devices they will stop using the router role. Also, it seems that there are quite a few people in a facebook group for South Wales Meshtastic users. I don't have an account but maybe posting something there would get the info to the right people

I wonder if there's a setting (or it could be added) to treat routers as if they were clients and de-prioritise them on the client side

[balmy osprey]

i dont think so as a lot of the behaviour is specific to the node

as the router and repeter modes mainly reduce the stand back time, which leads to more collisions

[frosty mulch]

Worse case, as people upgrade their devices they will stop having the option available

It would surprise me that someone would go through the effort of buying a development board, flash it, connect it, configure it, and then never look at it ever again

Maybe this is something that can be solved with an alert through the meshtastic app? Something like "Pss, we have noticed you have setting X set to on"

[balmy osprey]

i also think the naming needs changing

because the current CLIENT name doesnt seem to communicate that a client will still route packets

[balmy osprey]

i have an account, but i dont want to use it as its under a name i dont like

[gleaming trench]

The pontypool was a work horse earlier on in the year and brought us nodes from afar. It's in an ideal place.

Not sure who else has theirs set on Router/repeater.

[balmy osprey]

yeah, and that Valley would need a node like that

MW1DCF is currently set to a router client, but if its where i think it is, thats a good location too

its just !95a43189 i am unsure about now

[tropic mason]

Anyone here who previously had contact with node "EVESHAM Loft" (34:B7:DA:54:7C:34) and still sees it? It suddenly disappeared for me but it's usually on 24/7. Trying to work out if it's gone offline or if I should be checking my setup...

[gleaming trench]

Not seen them down my end

[gleaming trench]

Anyone monitoring tonight?

[past badge]

Hello Pontypool here 🙂 it's 340m abs just south of Pontypool. It's sees A LOT

Newport is needing to moved to a better location with a bit more elevation, same design as Pontypool, and sits on my fence right now

[frosty mulch]

That looks awesome

[frosty mulch]

I got my heltec v3 with the tiny case/antenna a few days ago but I haven't seen anyone yet. My house is not too high so I haven't tried putting it by the window for more than a few hours because I know it won't get too far. I plan on setting up something a bit higher soon...

[past badge]

Yeh as Mr jones has said, the first thing is antenna upgrade! And finding a good quality antenna

Getting outside is another massive gain.

[frosty mulch]

I have this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32850539643.html

[past badge]

Ah yes they are good if they are tuned

[frosty mulch]

But I need to craft a case of some sort that will accommodate the antenna and the device

[past badge]

I sell these with my prebuilt nodes

[frosty mulch]

I understand the company is kosher because they do lora devices

[frosty mulch]

Tuned how?

[past badge]

https://sparxprojects.etsy.com/listing/1570032538

I replace the conductor with one I trim and calibrate for 868mhz

[frosty mulch]

Oh, they do look great

[past badge]

https://sparxprojects.etsy.com/listing/1674325857

Can also get a solar node from my etsy store #shamelessplug

[tropic mason]

So weird. Hardly picking up broadcasts from a node a few miles away which I'm fairly sure is still active, but I started picking up nodes from tens of miles away in all directions... (intermittently).

[frosty mulch]

I am experimenting at the moment, but your stuff looks really good, so will probably re-visit your shop when I take this more seriously

[past badge]

If you got the tools and patience you can build similar, making something truly water proof is tricky but doable, just need to pick the right connectors and enclosures.

[balmy osprey]

i need to order annother enclosure as i didnt own a chirstmas tree bit until yesterday :P

[balmy osprey]

the paradar antenna definnetly has improved the SNR, going to move it to my attic later, that might affect it a bit due to the 2 walls and tiles, but gives it better LOS to bath

(also provides weatherproofing )

[gleaming trench]

I've got my home antenna in my loft with a big paradar. The difference is night and day

[balmy osprey]

what max hops do people have set?

[small fulcrum]

default is 3.. you shouldnt need any more or less.

[somber basalt]

7

[gleaming trench]

The one in my loft is 4 I think. Rest are on 3

[junior lotus]

Hello from a new Meshtastic user in South Glos. I have a background in amateur radio, IoT, and software development, so I’m really enjoying how this project brings those interests together.

I picked up a few signals a couple of days ago, including one that identified itself as being in the Forest of Dean. But nothing since.

Whats the etiquette for posting the ID's of the nodes I saw? 🙂

[somber basalt]

Hi Mintsauce. Welcome! It’s quiet in here at the moment. I’d say post away! I’m over the river in South Wales. Anything starting SNW is mine. I get a lot of nodes from Bristol. I’m high up and over look the river and Bristol.

[gleaming trench]

Hey!

I've got a few and go by JMRJ on short names.

Welcome and just sent out messages on long fast!

[gleaming trench]

Anyone else see the nodes up north recently?

[somber basalt]

Yep.

[gleaming trench]

Whats going down in Wales and South West then?

I have plugged my 433 node back in and nothing about!

[hollow tiger]

I’m getting no messages on the mesh at all I bristol, I try and transmit but I reach the maximum amount

[balmy osprey]

yeah, ive intermittently been having the same issue

[gleaming trench]

I literally see the the same three people message and thats it. I can see a load of nodes as standard but no talk

[balmy osprey]

i saw you test from thursday, but a few 1 way messages, not seeing the other party

also still getting max retransmit errors

[gleaming trench]

I think its on its ass again. It was working at one point but seems to be grinding to a halt! I just received your message on Longfast

[rustic cave]

I can confirm in Swansea most of the initial users have given up. Most heltec nodes have randomly stopped working due to some hardware fault? Raks appear to be still working for the people that bought the Raks, but dont think people are active on it anymore.

[quartz oriole]

I see mostly Heltec V3 near me.. and lots of them! 😅

[balmy osprey]

When i did a lorawan Uni project i ened up with 1 dead heltec board

the most unreliable ESP32s ive used, it was dead because of flash exaustion

[hollow tiger]

Is there interference?

[gleaming trench]

When I plugged in an SDR I didn't get any interference near me.

I cleared.my node list two night ago and I still get the same nodes. I also get the same few people reply but other than that it's dead.

[hollow tiger]

I replied with my friends node A444

[bleak kite]

Morning all. Like a lot of others, I've not been very active on Meshtastic the last few months. I still have a repeater running up high, and a couple of Client_mute nodes, but got a bit fed up that messages are still failing.
I noticed Andy Kirby has been promoting Meshcore on his Youtube channel. Has anyone had any experience using it?
Unless I've overlooked something, it appears to be a point to point messaging system (direct messaging) rather than a public broadcast to all, like Meshtastic's Longfast channel. This could be it's downfall, if that's the case.

It's simple enough to flash a Heltec with Meshcore, so I have created a repeater, and a couple of clients to do some experimenting. The repeater is in a bedroom window facing north (which could easily pick up @past badge Pontypool node on Meshtastic 43km away) so has good coverage over South Glos and Wales, but not to the South unfortunately (Sorry @gleaming trench ).
I'll be doing some experimenting while mobile over the next few weeks, so if anyone fancies a play, Meshcore flasher is at https://flasher.meshcore.co.uk/ and client https://client.meshcore.co.uk/.
It uses a different frequency to Meshtastic, so the two shouldn't interfere.

[balmy osprey]

I do wonder if part of my issue was that my antenna wasnt securely tightened, so it was struggling to RX

yeah, im getting ACKs now

quite quickly

[gleaming trench]

I'll geton this tonight for a play.

[balmy osprey]

just noticed W-S-M-1 is a router_client and looks like its in a flat urban area, not close to the coast

(if their location is accurtate)

[balmy osprey]

new node i dont recognise today, 1bristolwireless

[gleaming trench]

Node now set up on Meshcore.

What settings have you got it on @bleak kite

I have left it on the standard settings. I wil put it in the loft and see what happens over night.

[bleak kite]

I just left it on standard settings. There’s not a lot you can change really. I’m only seeing my other node. No one else.

[somber basalt]

I've got a meshcore repeater set up in the loft and a few other nodes I've been playing with. It works really well between my own nodes. Looking forward to trying to connect to other repeaters...

It's called NP26 Repeater. Undy, South Wales.

I've also got two repeater nodes ready to deploy in Emersons Green and one down near Taunton.

I've still got my Meshtastic node in the loft but its now on a cheap yagi pointing over the river to Bristol. It's called Undy Base (was Snowy Base I think)

[gleaming trench]

6.5dbi RAK node on Meshcore now in the loft. The MT node at Lansdown is now on my desk on Meshcore.

[gleaming trench]

Bit of testing today on MC. Seems to work about 500m away from my home with antenna on roof of car. Not tried mobile on foot yet.

[bleak kite]

You appeared on my node list today. I can't get a message to you though.

[gleaming trench]

That one is off at the moment. I'm guessing you can't see my home one?

[bleak kite]

No, unfortunately not. I might try and get my Meshtastic repeater down and re-flash that with Meshcore if the rain stops this year. The current Meshcore repeater is just in a front bedroom window.

[bleak kite]

I've been testing Meshcore for just over a week now, and have found the following.

Range appears less than Meshtastic. I've visited places where I know I could receive my Meshtastic node direct, but have been unable to get contact with my Meshcore repeater and nodes. I know the Spreading Factor is different on Meshcore, It appears to more like Medium Slow as far as I can tell. This would loose 2.5db Link Budget, but it seems to be a lot worse than just that. Like @gleaming trench, the furthest I have received from home is about 4-500m.

I have sometimes struggled keeping the web client and Web app connected to a node via Bluetooth. It sometimes takes multiple attempts to reconnect to a node. The recently released APK for Android has improved connection, but has a few extra bugs, including saying a message has failed when it hasn't, and the app appears to have lost the flood advert feature.
The web client has sometimes shown a message has failed after 4 tries, but the receiving node has received the 4 messages. I'm assuming there's no unique message ID to stop the receiving node duplicating messages.
Obviously these are only teething troubles, so not doubt would be fixed.
.....

One of the biggest issues I can see at the moment (if I have this correct) is using Meshcore mobile. Unless someone happens to manually send an "advert" while mobile, you'll never see them. I know there aren't many using Meshcore at the moment, but I have been driving all around Bristol & Gloucestershire (with good views of South Wales etc) and not seen anyone else. This could be because no one else is on it, or that I'll never see them if the don't send an advert.

Meshcore appears to be more suitable for an organised net rather than an open net like Meshtastic. Watching Andy Kirby's videos on Youtube sort of suggests it's more of an organised system, so it's not really a surprise.

Hats off to the developers for the work they're putting in to Meshcore. It's advancing very quickly, and no doubt the bugs will be sorted. It's a shame they didn't opt for a higher spread factor, to increase the Link Budget. This would have increased distance. There's no other crap being broadcast like Meshtastic, so the channel is quiet until someone sends a message. Maybe it's something to do with the duty cycle limits on the frequency they are using. There is a user option to change this, but obviously most people will use defaults.

I'm not sure how the Channel #0 works. I guess it floods the network, but obviously this can't be proved with just a couple of nodes. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on Meshcore, and see how it evolves. Hopefully others will appear.

[gleaming trench]

I plugged a node into my car antenna the other day when I had a node at home as a standard companion and It was making it back to my home address (lansdown-hanham)

Since changing it over to a router, it doesn't make the journey.

I've got a nibbler with rubber duck antenna on a window in work. I'm going to change it to a larger antenna soon to see if it's better up there with that.

[gleaming trench]

This is what I have at the moment for Meshcore. Had a few nodes pop up this evening

[gleaming trench]

Some activity at the moment

[bleak kite]

Have you seen UNDY Room on your list? It's set up by Snowy (may have changed his name). If you can access this it's a good way of knowing your message has been acknowledged. You never know on the Public Channel if your message has even reached another node or not. At least on Meshtastic, you had an acknowledgement that another node had heard it, even if it didn't end up going any further.
I've got 13 contacts on my list, but most are Snowy's nodes.
We could do with @past badge to set up his Pontypool node on Meshcore. This would make a world of difference.
I know the repeaters send out an info beacon every 3 hours by default, but guess the companion nodes don't, unless an advert is pushed. I'm assuming that you will never see anyone else, if you missed their initial beacon. Driving around seeing who else is on it is a bit of a waste of time.

[gleaming trench]

I'm out at the moment but I'm pretty sure I've seen the undy room.

Up to 11 on the list.

Yeh the node in the car has nothing on it.

[gleaming trench]

Can't teach the undy room.

[bleak kite]

That's a shame. I think rooms are the way forward for general chat. Public Channel is a bit hit and miss, like LongFast was.
Rooms appear to keep the messages stored, and send them to you when you connect. It's nearly impossible to miss a message as far as I can tell. If you get an acknowledgement when it's sent to the room server, then everyone on that room will see it.
We need a few more repeaters to bridge the gaps.

[gleaming trench]

Ah ok cool. Didnt realise they work like that. I'll have a play with a node set as a room. Also I'll get one set up at Lansdown.

[gleaming trench]

13 contacts now. @bleak kite brs2 is currently in Australia

[bleak kite]

I wish I was. It should be corrected now.

[bleak kite]

Snowy has switched his nodes and repeaters/rooms to old Meshtasic frequency, as discussed in Andy Kirby's Discord channel. I've done the same to see if it's less reliable. Meshtastic Freq 869.525Mhz. Moved from 867.5Mhz (reminder to me in case I go back)

[gleaming trench]

Changed freq see what happens.

[worn ember]

I’ve setup a router (BB-8 router) and client (BB-8) on 869.525.
The router says that it is on 869.5250224, I’ve reset the frequency a couple of times but it’s still on the wrong frequency.

[bleak kite]

This was mentioned on Andy Kirby's Discord. It's just a rounding error apparently, and doesn't affect the actual frequency.

[gleaming trench]

So I've managed to speak direct (hanham-stockwood) to @worn ember on Meshcore.

I've put a room server and set it as a repeater up at Lansdown but I can't reach that from my home.

Out and about today and will carry out a bit more testing.

Not sure how I'm still not seeing/contacting any of your recently @bleak kite

[bleak kite]

Do you think it is worse on the Meshtastic frequency?
I think Companion Nodes could do with an automated advert, like the repeaters. I've had a node in my work vehicle for a couple of weeks, driving around all over Bristol and Gloucestershire and not seen anyone else.

I've just sent adverts out on all my nodes.

[gleaming trench]

I wouldn't say it's worse. No different. No idea why I picked up all those boxes last week and nothing since. Maybe some sort of lift?

Yes same here nothing on my car node.

I'm using the same antenna in the same position as meshtastic in my loft as well.

Yes for sure the companion nodes could do with an advert sent out every so often.

[gleaming trench]

'Room' set in Hanham.

[worn ember]

I have a room server with repeater turned on in Stockwood.
I can see JMRJ, BRS2 and heltech V3 repeater.

[queen fossil]

Sorry if I’m missing something obvious- what’s this map tool?

[bleak kite]

Are you able to access any of them. BRS2 is one of my repeaters. You should be able to log in with no password to check access.

[bleak kite]

It's just an online line-of-site tool. There's lots available.

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I can’t login to your repeater. It was discovered at 12.30am, I don’t think it’s seen it since.

[bleak kite]

It should be sending an advert every hour. Just a one off maybe?

[worn ember]

@bleak kite Still no luck. Have you seen my BB-8 nodes?

[bleak kite]

They're not showing in my list. Whereabouts are you in Stockwood? I have received my repeater direct from the north side, nr The Coots.

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I'm on the NE side of Stockwood. You should be able to see them on https://meshcore.co.uk/map.html

[bleak kite]

I would have thought I would receive you. According to a coverage map of my node you're in the green. It doesn't account for trees and buildings though I guess. This map is of BRS1 repeater, but you picked up BRS2 which is a yagi facing to the south. I've now added it to the Meshcore map.

[bleak kite]

Has anyone come across this message when trying to access a repeater as a guest on Meshcore? It seems a bit of a catch 22, as you can't set up the path until you have connected and know the path, surely???

[gleaming trench]

Current state of my list

[worn ember]

Can you add the path with the 3 dots?

[worn ember]

@bleak kite what’s your client called? I don’t think I’ve seen it yet! I can hit JMRJ room repeater node so was hoping yours would route through that. I can see your repeaters via flood.

I can see your client node mopatops home.

[bleak kite]

I've never been able to get a direct contact with @gleaming trench on Meshtastic even though he's only 2km away from me. There is too much hill in the way. Our contact used to be through a repeater in Pontypool 45km away. 90km round trip instead of 2km direct. What path does it show to my node?

[worn ember]

I’ve only seen a flood advert from you at 7.59 this morning

[bleak kite]

It's obviously still a bit flaky. I still can't see any of your nodes. I have my yagi in the loft at the moment. I might try it outside on the mast tomorrow.

[worn ember]

I’ve just received your advert from home.

My setup must be compromised as I can hear you but can’t message you.

[bleak kite]

That is a bit strange. Are you able to see BRS Room? Can you access it?

[bleak kite]

I wonder if Meshcore being on the Meshtastic frequency is causing issues. I notice my ChUtil on Meshtastic is around 25% at the moment. There won't be any collision avoidance as Meshcore is on a different spread factor to Meshtastic. There's a fair chance of missed messages.
I'm currently struggling accessing Snowy's UNDY room, which I had no problem with on the original 867.5Mhz frequency.

I think it may be a bit of a mistake being on the same frequency as Meshtastic, but different settings. At least if we were on the same spread factor there would be collision avoidance (if Meshcore has this implemented).

[gleaming trench]

Need to get something on top of the green beacon!

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I’m on the brs room now.

[bleak kite]

I can see all your messages, but I guess you're not seeing mine?

[worn ember]

I can see your hi snowy message

[bleak kite]

I'm still not seeing your name. Can you try sending some flood adverts?

[worn ember]

Flood adverts sent from both nodes. I’ve set adverts on BB-8 room to be sent every 60 mins

[bleak kite]

I'm still not seeing them. I'll try putting my yagi on the mast later and see if that helps. It's nearly there.

According to Snowy, the automated adverts are only sent locally, so will not be seen through another repeater. Only the manual flood advert goes through all repeaters. I think for now we need to remember to periodically manually send flood adverts. I hope they change this in later updates.

[worn ember]

Yep. Agreed about the auto local advert. I’ll try to remember to send flood adverts out a few times a day.
My room node is a t114 v1 which is in the loft hanging from a rafter so the antenna is inverted.

@bleak kite I can see your message in the public channel

[somber basalt]

Hi. 👋

I’m Snowy 🤣

Well my dog is called Snowy

@bleak kite try adding BB-8’s key from the meshcore map

I’ve just seen a message from BB-8 even though he’s not in my contact list

[bleak kite]

I saw your message on the public channel earlier. I think if you could get your antenna outside, it would work a lot better. I never had much luck with mine in the loft.

[worn ember]

I’ve just put my client node on the roof and sent an advert

[bleak kite]

Hi Coastie. I thought I had seen you on Andy's Discord, but couldn't link you in this one. I had a message on the public channel from BB8, but not in the contact list. I guess it doesn't work like that I'll try adding from the map 👍

[somber basalt]

I think if it a public message then it should show unknown user but I’m not sure

[bleak kite]

It showed unknown user in the BRS room and BB-8 in the public channel. It obviously doesn't add it to the list of nodes when it sees a message like Meshtastic does.

[bleak kite]

I'm still not seeing you in the list. I won't add you manually for now, just to make sure it does appear. Are you getting a lot of failed messages when you send in the room?

[worn ember]

I haven’t managed to login to the room for about 30 mins. Most of the messages said delivered almost immediately, a couple failed.

[bleak kite]

I'm still thinking it could be Meshtastic interfering. The channel utilisation figure is still high on my Meshtastic node. I've turned off my Meshtastic repeater a few days ago, and my node is set to Client Mute to minimise traffic from me. but still have intermittent problems getting in to UNDY room.
We used to have a separate Wales & West mesh on a different frequency a while ago. Maybe we could try experimenting on it some time to see if it is interference. It's main drawback was it only had a 1% duty cycle allowance, but Meshcore will be less than that.

Or even back to the original Meshcore frequency???

[somber basalt]

I’m willing to give it a go. There was one other difference from the other week. I have a yagi repeater on as well. I switch the yagi one off because I think it was too close to the omni and the boards were resetting.

[bleak kite]

I did wonder if 2 repeaters on the same site interfere. I have watched both of mine on an SDR, and the do appear to transmit at different times, and not over the top of each other.

[somber basalt]

thats clever

I've switched my yagi repeat to on now again

you will probably have to reset path and let it find the best route again

[bleak kite]

I've just reset the path and got straight in. If @worn ember and @gleaming trench are around later, maybe we'll try swapping frequencies temporarily to see if there's any improvement.

[worn ember]

Yep I can do that

[somber basalt]

yep

[bleak kite]

I'll put my Yagi on the mast later, and we'll see if we can get things working a bit better 👍

[somber basalt]

BB-8 is connected to BRS Room. BB-8 Room /repeater -> BRS2 repeater. I'm connected via Undy Omni -> BRS1 repeater.

[gleaming trench]

Node on roof at Lansdown. Clear line of site across Bristol and across the water to Wales.

I cant DM people or get into any rooms at the moment

[somber basalt]

are you on 869.525?

Any luck on the public channel?

[gleaming trench]

Yes that freq and BB8 can see my messages

I've just sent out a flood advert

[gleaming trench]

I can see across to Wales

Seeing this

[bleak kite]

@gleaming trench @somber basalt @worn ember I've changed everything over to 869.850Mhz for some testing. This was the frequency we used for the Wales & West mesh when Meshtastic was getting too busy a while ago. I think the main difference legally is to keep duty cycle under 1%. This is per hour, and I don't think you could type that fast to go over the limit.
I'm going to keep it on this for a least 24 hours, so I can experiment tomorrow while at work. Everything is the same if anyone wants to try it out.
The main reason for this temporary switch is to see whether Meshtastic is interfering with Meshcore.

[gleaming trench]

Ok Roger that.

I'll put a node on that freq

[bleak kite]

There is a regular signal on the Meshtastic frequency I notice. I don't think this would cause interference, but it's there.
For reference, this is the separation between Meshtastic & 869.850Mhz.

[worn ember]

I’ve moved my 2 nodes over to the test frequency and sent adverts

[gleaming trench]

Seems to be working!

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I can see your message in public

[bleak kite]

I'm still not seeing you. Can you send a couple of adverts?

[worn ember]

Adverts sent from both nodes.

[bleak kite]

I guess your Lansdown node is still on the old frequency? Or don't you leave it on when you're not there?

[bleak kite]

I'm still not seeing your adverts. I thought I would. Can you access BRS1/2 or room?

[gleaming trench]

Yes its on the old one. Its on the roof with a solar panel

[bleak kite]

I think if I could link to that one then I could get you and @worn ember

[worn ember]

I haven’t seen a brs advert since this morning

[gleaming trench]

I will see what I can do tomorrow, Its currently zip tied to a post

[bleak kite]

Do you have remote access to it?

[worn ember]

I can see mopatops home but can’t DM

[gleaming trench]

I will give it a go now.

[bleak kite]

I've just added you from the map. DM's fail. I think JMRJ's Lansdown repeater is the best bet for a link. I should have line of site to it from where I am, although never received it direct on Meshtastic. Are you getting JMRJ OK?

[worn ember]

I’ve got your DMs

[bleak kite]

I am getting failures so not getting the ack back I guess?

[worn ember]

Test direct message fails.
Received

[bleak kite]

Weird isn't it?

[worn ember]

I’ve tried adding a hop through my room

[worn ember]

Yep, still think you have a better setup than me.

[bleak kite]

You get a good connection to JMRJ though?

[somber basalt]

I’ve sent a public message on 869.850. Anyone got it?

[bleak kite]

No message. I should receive yours.

[bleak kite]

This is the line-of-site between me and you(ish). Other than trees and buildings it should be clear.

[somber basalt]

I got your message. Test public

Just replied to Public Test to Snowy

[bleak kite]

I'm see nothing. I can't access your Undy Room either, or is that not been swapped?

[somber basalt]

I swapped it over but I can’t get in either. The time has probably reset

[bleak kite]

One of my repeaters didn't swap when I rebooted. I had to go back to the original frequency and do it again.

[somber basalt]

yes its still on the old freq

[bleak kite]

Have you tried putting a route of your room then b9 in the DM path. I wonder whether it's hitting both repeaters and messing something up. It shouldn't do, but you never know.

[worn ember]

I’ve removed all of your nodes from my contact list can you resend adverts

[bleak kite]

Adverts sent for Mopatops / BRS1 / BRS2 / BRS room

[worn ember]

Received them

No luck routing through any combination

[bleak kite]

That's a shame. It wasn't just being on the Meshtastic frequency that was stopping a link then? See what happens when JMRJ gets his Lansdown repeater across.

[gleaming trench]

Couldn't connect to the Lansdown node. I'll try in the morning

Ideally I would get my antenna outside. Only problem would be that I would have to run a couple of meters of coax. I've got a load of LMR400. Would the loss be way too much for the little power?

[somber basalt]

@bleak kite I can see all your flood adverts and you message in the public channel but having no luck getting back. Maybe there's a hidden repeater between us?

[somber basalt]

@bleak kite also received your test DM but can’t reply

Has everyone updated to V1.4.0 firmware?

[gleaming trench]

Yes all but my remote node in Lansdown

[bleak kite]

Sorry guys, got dragged away. I've seen no activity from anyone since changing frequency. I can access my repeaters and room no problem. I'm not sure what's changed with yours Snowy. Your Undy room and DM's were pretty good before.
I didn't think you could have a hidden repeater. It would still show up in the path, wouldn't it?
I'll do some testing tomorrow still on this frequency and see if my mobile node has issues getting contact.

I've just updated everything to the latest firmware. I did read something on Andy's Discord channel about incompatibility between firmware versions. I don't know what difference it would have made just swapping frequency, but I've done it anyway. Everything is on v1.4.0

[gleaming trench]

I won't be able to put the Lansdown node on 1.4 today I will change it to the new freq though. I'll bring it back and do it overnight though

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I’ve received you message on the public channel.

[bleak kite]

Thank you. Something isn't working properly on this frequency. I have just driven to Stroud on my normal route A46 and have not been able to access any of my nodes from the usual places. I think it must be something wrong my end. There's something making the nodes deaf.
I can't believe a small change in frequency can cause this. Maybe there's something on that frequency near me that's interfering.

[bleak kite]

Does anyone know why 867.5 was chosen as the test frequency for Meshcore? I see on Andy's Discord they're still listing it as a secondary channel.
I've looked at the Ofcom band plan and it shows that frequency as RFID up to 2 Watts.

[worn ember]

Nope, no idea why 867.5 was used.

[bleak kite]

Just for reference from Andy's Discord. It may be in the app, buy I haven't come across it.
EDIT: It is in the app. Three dots near Radio Settings brings up the list.

[gleaming trench]

Lansdown on 850

[bleak kite]

I'll try contact later on the way home. The frequency is not looking good for connecting to my nodes. I've no idea why.

[worn ember]

I've had a go at reaching BRS home via BB8 room and lansdown room nodes ... no luck so far 😦

[somber basalt]

@bleak kite

I’ve received a couple of test messages but looks like you are not hearing me. I also can’t get into the BRS room.

Also tried DM and not getting through

[bleak kite]

Experiment on new frequency : Total disaster.

I've not been able to get any messages through to my nodes in places I normally do. I don't know why. Maybe my nodes are all broken???
I asked on Andy's Discord if anyone had issues on the Meshtastic frequency, and although he hasn't experienced issues, a few others have. It's agreed that the two system will collide with each other, and messages may go missing. It's been discussed to "up" the number of retries, so messages have a better chance of getting through. I think, while Meshtasic is still around, Meshcore won't be it's best.

I've changed all my nodes over to the original Meshcore frequency (867.5Mhz) for now, to have another go. At least I can prove whether something is wrong with my nodes.

If any of you have some time later, would you mind seeing if you can log onto any of my nodes on the 867.5 frequency? I've no way of testing until tomorrow, when I'm out and about again. Obviously I can log on locally, but that proves nothing. Thank you.

[somber basalt]

🫡

[bleak kite]

Thank you 👍

[somber basalt]

I’ve changed over. I’ve also change my repeater to a Heltec v3. My T114s loose time too easy.

I’ve sent a couple of public messages

I got yours saying no messages received

[bleak kite]

I've not received any public messages. I don't understand. Maybe my 2 repeaters are interfering?

[somber basalt]

It’s very strange

[bleak kite]

Can you send an advert?

[somber basalt]

Sent again.

[bleak kite]

Nothing. Give me 5 minutes, I'm going to take the Yagi off the mast. Try and put it back to when it worked...

[bleak kite]

I've taken yagi off the pole, but still not confident. I cannot connect to any of your repeaters 🫤

[somber basalt]

sounds like the clock has reset. my T114s do all the time and you have to connect a PC and use the terminal to reset the clock

[bleak kite]

Does it mess it up when the clock is wrong?

[somber basalt]

i couldn't access it at all when the clocks was out. I can with the G2 and V3 when the clock is out. Recrof said that the repeaters will still repeat but you won't see an advert

[bleak kite]

Ah I see. I forget to check my clocks. I use remote access and press sync clock sometimes, but never know if they're wrong.

[somber basalt]

in the CLI just type clock

[bleak kite]

This is the reception signal from you
18:44:49 - 20/3/2025 U: RX, len=7 (type=3, route=D, payload_len=4) SNR=-7 RSSI=-107 score=705

I haven't pushed the mast up properly.

[somber basalt]

what was the path?

[bleak kite]

6b,2c

[somber basalt]

Mine was Me--G2 Repeater-BRS1 repeater

[bleak kite]

Your G2 repeater is showing unknown. It might not be in my list.

[somber basalt]

2c is my G2 so it can hear your repeater okay

[bleak kite]

Strange. Can it send an advert so it appears in my list?

[somber basalt]

turned the power down and I can't message you

[bleak kite]

I've just seen your advert. Is this higher power?

[somber basalt]

i sent 1 low and 1 high

i wonder if there's a hidden repeater on 869.525

[bleak kite]

I see your "Omni didn't work" message twice. You must have had a failure report ???

[somber basalt]

yes i did

[bleak kite]

There could be a hidden repeater. I think we'll have to end up on the Meshtastic frequency anyway, to stay legal. Can you switch quickly, or is it a pain?

[somber basalt]

i'll swap now

check your clocks after you change freq and reboot

[bleak kite]

I switched Mopatops Home & BRS1 for now to 869.525.

[somber basalt]

done. sent a message but it has failed

[bleak kite]

Great. Have you changed you G2 over?

[somber basalt]

no

not yet

[bleak kite]

Which one did you change?

[somber basalt]

undy repeater

[bleak kite]

I can't connect to it. I'm not seeing anything back.

[bleak kite]

I'm going to put the Yagi back up in the loft where it was. I'll see if that helps.

[somber basalt]

ok. got G2 back online but getting failed messages

(low power)

[bleak kite]

I'm getting totally confused now. I put Yagi in loft pointing your direction, but it's still using my BRS1 node. Now I can't get anything ???

[worn ember]

Do you want me to change to 869.525?

[bleak kite]

You could try 869.525 if you like. It's not working very well between me and Coastie at the moment. I've taken my yagi down thinking it was interfering, so you may get nothing. Try if you like though.

[worn ember]

I’m on it

[bleak kite]

I'm sending to you direct, but no acknowledgement.

[somber basalt]

if you go into the repeater CLI. what do you get if you type get txdelay and get rxdelay ?

[bleak kite]

TX 0.5 RX 0.0

[worn ember]

Could you send an advert from home,

[bleak kite]

Sent a couple of adverts

[bleak kite]

I guess you're seeing nothing today?

[worn ember]

I can’t do a trace route to G2

[bleak kite]

Can you connect to it. It's an open repeater.

[worn ember]

I’ve tried to message snowy remote, no luck.

Message sent on public channel

[bleak kite]

I have got totally confused at what works and what doesn't anymore. I'm going to put my nodes back to 867.500, the original Meshcore frequency for now. I want to do a bit of range testing tomorrow.
Thanks for all your help proving my node does still work (I think)

[worn ember]

I’ll change mine back to 500

[bleak kite]

Thanks all. We'll get something that works eventually. We'll have to try and convince @gleaming trench to climb that tower he looks at every day 😉

[gleaming trench]

I'll get my home nodes back on it now.

[gleaming trench]

I've had a look to see I can do it.

I don't think I would get away with it haha

I'm struggling to stay connected via Bluetooth at the moment. Keeps dripping out

[worn ember]

The latest firmware was supposed to sort the BT issue

[gleaming trench]

North East if the direction behind what is left of the chimney stack. @bleak kite you are in that direction! Maybe why no direct comms along with a bit of a hill in the way.

[worn ember]

Is it worth having a chat on ZB at some point? It might get other listeners interested in Meshcore.

[bleak kite]

I guess that will block a fair bit of the signal. There's not too much between us if both our antenna were 10m AGL.

[bleak kite]

I have had more success connecting to my nodes while out and about today, on 867.5.
I've lost contact with UNDY repeaters and room though. Also, I can see there are messages in BB8 room, but can't connect. No JMRJ Lansdown or home connection either.
The only other thing may be worth trying is adjusting the spread factor. I'm thinking if it was set the same as LongFast, it might work better on the Meshtastic frequency, being able to use collision avoidance against Meshtastic. We should get slightly better range as well. I don't know if the speed reduction would make a great deal of difference.
I think Meshcore will have to eventually end up on LongFast anyway, if it's to share the same frequency as Meshtastic.

Meshcore looks to be on Medium Slow SF10 CR5
Meshtastic is LongFast SF11 CR5

Any thoughts?

EDIT: I've put all my nodes over to SF11 on 867.5 for testing for now.

[somber basalt]

Switched to SF11.

867.5,250,11,5

Sent some DM some got through so definitely an improvement.

My room isn’t running at the moment

[gleaming trench]

on SF 11

[bleak kite]

Still not getting you at the moment. If @worn ember changes his setting it might give us a link.

[gleaming trench]

I've had nothing all day but my own nodes.

[bleak kite]

For info I've set BRS1 & BRS2 to send a flood advert every 5 minutes. It's only temporary.

[somber basalt]

I’m not seeing anything. I need to swap my deaf G2 out.

[gleaming trench]

This is my latest

[bleak kite]

Is the "test repeater" yours? I've seen the same nodes at the same times (but not yours???). BB8 was just before I switched to SF11, and his is still on SF10 at the moment. I just checked, and got in to his room no problem this morning on SF10. BS16 I can't contact on SF10 or SF11. I spoke to him on Meshtastic. He says he's put a node & repeater on default settings, but didn't reply when I said about testing SF11. The message probably didn't get through. He must be on 867.5 as well.
Hopefully @worn ember & @somber basalt can get SF11 working properly and we could eventually try it on the Meshtastic frequency to see if it kills it.

I asked on Andy's Discord about Collision Avoidance, and if SF11 is a better default setting if it's to compete with Meshtastic, but have had no replies to it. It's disappearing up the list now, so will probably go unnoticed.
Quite a few people have had issues with Meshcore since changing to 869.525.
It's created a bit of a split with groups going off in different directions with different settings (us included I suppose). Ultimately it would be best to stay with the defaults, but if they don't work very well Meshcore will probably die.

[gleaming trench]

No idea who the test repeater is.

SF11 works good between my nodes and but nothing further.

I saw a message from BS16 in public channel but never got his contact on my list.

I won't be at home today to test anything but will take a node with me to see if it picks anything up.

[gleaming trench]

I've also had my meshtastic node unplugged for the past few days to see if that helps at all.

[somber basalt]

Test Repeater was mine. Its a Heltec V3 and will replace the G2 when I get a minute.

Legally. 867.5 has a bandwidth restriction of 200 and we are using 250. Although there's no reason we can't change the bandwidth as well

So we are going for 869.525,250,11, 5 for now?

@bleak kite

[bleak kite]

We'll stay on 867.5 for now I think. Once we have a mesh that works we could look at going to 869.525.
I don't even know whether the Collision Avoidance would work between the two systems anyway if we stayed on SF11 on 869.525. I'm still seeing 20%+ channel usage on Meshtastic, so Meshcore may never work properly on 869.525.

I thought 867.5 also had a power limit of 25mW, but I don't fully understand the Ofcom rules.

Personally, I have no problem staying on 867.5. If the extra 50khz bandwidth is the only problem then who's to know. The ISM bands aren't policed anyway. Ofcom openly admit that. As long as we don't interfere with paying licence holders, they don't give a toss.

It's trying to get others to join us if we don't stay with default settings. We proved this with the Wales & West Meshtastic mesh. Hardly anyone wanted to move across.

[somber basalt]

Completely agree about OFCOM. I'll stick with 867.50 for now.

OFCOM wouldn't get involved unless someone complained about inteference. Its like CE marking. Its not policed unless something bad happens.

[bleak kite]

We could always try 125khz with SF11 and CR8. It would give another 3db Link budget but drop speed to 340 bps (SF10 CR5 = 1.95Kbps / SF11 CR5 = 1.07Kbps).
It would be more robust, and we probably wouldn't be able to tell the speed drop in reality.
I'm up for trying anything. Experimenting is what it's all about 🤓

We did experiment with VERY LONG SLOW on Meshtastic once. It was very slow, but it really did penetrate through to areas we'd never got signal before.

[gleaming trench]

@bleak kite just got back home.

I sent the public message at Cosham hospital then at the junction turning I to Kingswood high street. I got your two replies.

I sent messages on the public channel when stationary at lights and I only picked up the one message at the bottom of court road at my home node. Big dead spot for Kingswood for me

[bleak kite]

I've had the same driving around. I'm about 400m North East of Cossham, so get 40km + to the North and West, but loose it less then 1km to the South.
I was in Yate this afternoon and picked up BRS1 and BRS Room (through BRS1) no problem in the shopping centre. I've picked it up from Chepstow, Stinchcombe & Stroud recently, but not just over the hill into Kingswood. It's amazing isn't it?

[gleaming trench]

Crazy. It just seems to be a big dead spot. Maybe a mix of a hill and a built up area.

[bleak kite]

I did wonder about pointing a yagi at Cossham hospital. I can see the tower out of a bedroom window. I wonder if the signal would bounce off of it?

[gleaming trench]

Need a nice Omni on top of it!!

I might look at getting a yagi for Lansdown as there is nothing the other side of it and I could probably point in your direction to create a link to mine.

I think a meshtastic node Skjo or something like that was a good hop from mine to Lansdown

[bleak kite]

I got you well from Hanging Hill the other day. I should get your Lansdown node, I don't know why I can't. Even the elevation map shows nothing in the way.

[gleaming trench]

Yes hanging hill is literally 20 meters away from the Lansdown node. I may relocate the Lansdown node to the hill in a fence post and hope it doesn't get knocked/trashed.

[bleak kite]

It would join North & South together. It would be a shame if it was trashed or went missing though. Maybe a yagi each end would get a link. I've got my yagi pointing towards Stockwood at the moment. I might change it's direction towards Lansdown and see what happens. I guess your Lansdown node is still on different settings at the moment though?

[gleaming trench]

Yes Lansdown is on wrong settings and I can't reach it from here. I'm back to work in morning and will try and resolve

[somber basalt]

Haven’t been able to do much testing today. I did receive your message @gleaming trench “Kingswood” on the public channel.
I’m not seeing any flood adverts anymore. Must be the deaf G2. Will swap out soon.

Looking at the SNR it looks like my T Echo received your message directly. The G2 repeater didn’t hear the message at all.

[gleaming trench]

Crazy how these things work/don't work!

[worn ember]

Afternoon all, just checking what am I changing the setting to?

[bleak kite]

We’re trying Spreading Factor 11 with all other settings staying the same. 867.5,250,11,5.

[worn ember]

I changed both nodes over to SF 11 but management kept timing out on the room node 😦 it’s a t114 v1 so I don’t know if the HW issue is causing my connection issues.
I’ve changed both nodes to 869.525 so that I can be Billy no mates 🙂

I reflashed the room node but no luck.

[somber basalt]

@gleaming trench

[gleaming trench]

Just had you ping through on my other node inside the swimming pool

[gleaming trench]

Just got back and 0 of this reaches my home.

It's 2km away

[somber basalt]

I also got your new Cheltenham road test.

That’s is really strange. I’m receiving them directly on my little t echo with a tiny antenna.

[gleaming trench]

Crazy!

It's literally must just be the urban environment and slight hill!

[balmy osprey]

I keep intending on setting up my RTL-SDR to check for interference

[bleak kite]

I still can't access your repeater and room. It was working great the other day.

[bleak kite]

It's quite difficult to see anything, as most is under the noise floor.

[worn ember]

I've re-flashed my last MT heltec v3 node to MC BB-8 V3
I've sent out a few adverts. I can hit JMRJs nodes.

[somber basalt]

My room isn’t running. The repeater is now Undy Repeater. I replaced the G2.

I’ll send more flood adverts this evening

[bleak kite]

That might explain it. Do you think it was the G2 getting you across the water then?

[bleak kite]

Not seeing them this end. Have you a repeater as well, or just a companion node? Is this SF11 on 867.5 or something else?

[worn ember]

I've got BB-8 V3 Room with repeater turned on. Both BB-8 nodes on SF11 on 867.5

[bleak kite]

I got for the other day on SF10. SF11 should be 3db better. I'll check the yagi hasn't fallen over in the loft.

[bleak kite]

Your getting my adverts then? I'll go and check the yagi node.

[gleaming trench]

Lansdown node on SF11 Rx your repeaters @bleak kite

[worn ember]

I haven't seen your home node today

Your home node has just popped up

[bleak kite]

I just sent an advert.

[gleaming trench]

So I can reach my home node.

Just spoken to @worn ember on DM and public.

[worn ember]

I've got the BRS1, BRS2 and home adverts

@bleak kite I've received your public message.

[bleak kite]

Can you resend adverts on yours. My yagi had fallen down in the loft.

[worn ember]

Adverts sent

[bleak kite]

I'll try pointing yagi to Lansdown if no luck with BB8. Might get link that way.
@worn ember I've not seen your adverts.

[worn ember]

@bleak kite I've got your repeater adverts

I'll move my room node into the loft

[bleak kite]

@gleaming trench Have you allowed public access to your Lansdown room? I'm trying to connect now, but no luck.

[worn ember]

I can't login to landsdown either

[gleaming trench]

Yes no password

It's not on 1.4 so may not work

[worn ember]

That’s 2 messages delivered to mop

[bleak kite]

Does it show a path? I was in the loft putting the yagi back on my rotator so I don't have to keep moving it manually, then I come down and see you have had contact. I don't know at which point it worked.

[bleak kite]

I saw 3 messages. 2nd one must have duplicated.

[worn ember]

The path was my room and your yagi. I haven’t managed to send another dm.

[bleak kite]

I wonder how I was pointing the yagi when you got it. I've swept east to west while trying to connect to your room and JMRJ Lansdown, but no success. I must have got something from JMRJ because I had a room notification come up with JMRJ saying "Alan!". Unable to send a message though.

[bleak kite]

I'm still not able to get a connection to anyone.

I wonder if it is interference. For a probably last experiment, I've put all my nodes on to 125khz bandwidth Coding Rate 8 Spreading Factor 11. Same as Long Moderate on Meshtastic. There settings are actually legal to use on this frequency (867.5), but it might be too slow. Gain of 3db Link budget as well. If we can't connect using these settings, then probably nothing will.
It would be nice to know how slow it actually is.

BRS1 BRS2 & BRS Room are all public access, so you should know straight away if it works.

[somber basalt]

I’m not sure. I thought it was working best using the omni and a heltec but I’ve tried a lot so could be wrong. I might try a spare a RAK next!

I can see your BRS1 repeater adverts but can’t connect. Also not seeing you home advert. I think I’m just too far away and it all depends on the weather.

[gleaming trench]

I can get to Lansdown from my.home

[bleak kite]

For some reason one of the nodes didn't go over. I can't remeber which now. I've checked them and they're both set correctly, and the room. I'll leave it like it for a while if you wanted to try connecting again.

[bleak kite]

Can you not normally get it?

[gleaming trench]

No.

[bleak kite]

Is it connecting well, or only just?

[bleak kite]

I see a JMRJ Test in my list from 5:34pm.

[gleaming trench]

Yes connects every time now. 1 hop

[bleak kite]

I still can't connect to it. Unless my yagi is ultra directional. I'm just taking best guess at where I point it. It's still on 250Khz SF11 CR5 is it, or did you change it to 125khz SF11 CR8? I'm getting confused at what's set to what at the moment.

[bleak kite]

@somber basalt I connected to your UNDY REPEATER, but then realised I was on the wrong settings. I have changed the yagi settings to BW 125 SF11 CR8 again. I reckon you'll connect on that.

[somber basalt]

I’ve just replaced my Undy Repeater with Undy Room Repeater. Replaced Heltec with a RAK wireless. Now getting good two way comms with BB-8. 4 hops. Settings 867.5,250,11,5

[bleak kite]

Brilliant. What are the 4 hops. I didn’t know there were that many on it 😂

[somber basalt]

It’s gone down to three now. Undy Repeater. 9F and 94. I cleaned my node list out so don’t know who they are.

I’m also able to post into BB-8 v3 room

[bleak kite]

I’ll change mine back to those settings later. See it I get comms with you again.

[somber basalt]

Okay

[bleak kite]

I was chatting to Bryan (CATM) the other day. He was one of the originals testing mesh core a lot with Andy Kirby. He says it’s 2 hops from him to Andy, and 4 hops back. There must be interference somewhere. I guess we are sharing the ISM band with a lot of other stuff.

[gleaming trench]

I just got into the UNDY room.

Consistent with my Lansdown room now.

Public chat seems to work

[somber basalt]

Cool. Was Hi Undy and 3 hops you?

[gleaming trench]

yes.

[somber basalt]

Nice. You are still showing at unknown sender as I’ve not seen your advert yet.

[gleaming trench]

I have just chucked otu a few adverts

We need to sort out a 'room' that we can all reach. I think thats the answer to this all

[somber basalt]

Yes. Can you reach BB-8 v3?

[gleaming trench]

Who is willing to climb the severn bridge?

[somber basalt]

You first

🤣

Did you send flood adverts or just normal ones?

[gleaming trench]

You got me in bb8 v3?

[gleaming trench]

Both

[somber basalt]

Shame. I’m not getting the adverts

[gleaming trench]

It's busy on my SDR!

[somber basalt]

I’m not seeing all the messages in the room. (V3)

[bleak kite]

I've put my settings back to 250,11,5 and can access UNDY REPEATER with good SNR. Can everyone send adverts again to update the lists 👍

[worn ember]

Adverts sent

@bleak kite I can see your message but I can’t send

[bleak kite]

I saw your message TEST.

[worn ember]

So I didn’t get the ack.

BB8 dm test received

[bleak kite]

That seems to be a common thing. Even Andy Kirby's videos had that happening. That's why a room is the best way of messaging.

[somber basalt]

I was finding earlier that I wasn’t seeing all the messages in the room. They weren’t all downloading. Still early days I guess

If I log back in and wait. They slowly start to download.

[bleak kite]

I can't access your undy room. Can you send and advert from it?

[somber basalt]

Sent

X3

[bleak kite]

I'm just getting all the old messages coming through on your room. It's a shame the timestamps are now, not when they were sent.

[hollow tiger]

Anyone gotten any idea why Bristol is now the phantom zone for 868mhz? I’m in Redland close to the Waitrose and haven’t seen a node in months. I reached a node at temple meads within seconds?

[balmy osprey]

the geography probably doesn't help

[hollow tiger]

I’m right on the top of a hill, I used to clear my nodeDB and wake up with 50+ nodes. Now I get nothing, I’ve changed hardware also still the same

[gleaming trench]

@somber basalt the link you tagged us in for the meshcore channel doenst work

[somber basalt]

I think you might have to join the mesh core discord first.

https://discord.gg/47qAhMeE

[shut thorn]

Would anyone be willing to help me get started with Meshtastic IRL? I'm finding it's is all way over my head and would appreciate a bit of help to get going. Feel free to message me if you can. Thanks.

[gleaming trench]

What is your location?

Meshtastic is on its ass currently. A few of us have moved over to Meshcore. It's working well.

[quartz oriole]

Seems to be absolutely fine around here, except a few people not updating firmware. 😛

[balmy osprey]

i still need to get arround to making my node auto update

also a few router nodes, inland on flat bits of land

[shut thorn]

North Cardiff. I've not heard of Meshcore?

[bleak kite]

https://discord.com/channels/1343693475589263471/1354436436199473254

https://discord.com/channels/826570251612323860/1330643963501351004

[past badge]

Been a while since I've been in here! So we are using meshcore? I'll have to have a look. Pontypool is in disparate need of an update

[gleaming trench]

@analog tundra you on Meshcore?

[analog tundra]

Yeah, I've put my nodes onto meshcore, but don't seem to be picking anything up

[analog tundra]

Getting nodes popping up now

[gleaming trench]

Have you been able to chat with anyone? Put a message on the public chat.

I was at avonmouth the other day and I could make it back to Hanham via Undy.

[past badge]

Just flashed newport and red to meshcore

Newport Solar Repeater is a repeater, and red is a companion, not sure what any of this means yet! 😛

[bleak kite]

What frequency are you on? I'm not sure what default flash settings are now.

[past badge]

Looks like 869.525 and spreading 11, seems higher than meshtastics default for longfast

[bleak kite]

I can't remember to be honest, but it is supposed to be the same settings as Meshtastic. It's the settings we're using at the moment anyway.
Don't forget to send flood adverts regularly, otherwise no one will know you're there.

[north hollow]

Just bought a Heltec V3 and live around Cheltenham. Looks like people are split over meshcore and meshtastic. Any recommendations on which one to go with? 😅

[quartz oriole]

I haven't seen a single logical, reasonable argument for meshcore.

[gleaming trench]

Currently Meshcore works well but little users. You can send messages and is pretty fast with decent connections

Meshtastic doesn't work well and has lots of users. You only see half of messages and the sheer amount of data that gets transmitted grinds the network to a halt.

This image from my SDR with my Meshtastic.node on.

This one with it off.

[balmy osprey]

largely from misinformation leading to misconfiguration

[past badge]

Pontypool south now on meshcore 🫡

[bleak kite]

Welcome 🫡 . I'm seeing you on my node list. Have you got guest access turned on, as I can't log on to it?

[past badge]

Ah is that a thing... I'll have to do an update

[bleak kite]

Are you running an old version? It's useful being able to log on to a repeater, just to see it's reception stats.

[past badge]

I literally just flashed with whatever the newest

Took the laptop and dud it live hhhhhh

[bleak kite]

Can you remote access yours with a password? If so you can set the guest password to be blank and it will allow others to log in to the information screen. If you click on another repeater you'll see what I mean, leave password blank.
It's very useful for setting up a node. If you're hitting the repeater direct, you can keep hitting refresh and get a live SNR and RSSI of your connection.
Have you re-flashed your Ponty Meshtastic node, or are you still using the MT one?

[past badge]

Got it, I set an admin password but not a guest, I just refreshed ponty node with meshcore

[bleak kite]

Brilliant. Hopefully we'll see more nodes showing up soon. It's worth setting up the advert function as well. It's limited to 3 hours for a flood advert and 60 minutes for a 1 hop advert. Unfortunately there's no function on the companion nodes to do this yet, I think they were talking about maybe once every 24 hours. I have a routine programmed to send a manual advert every 15 minutes on my repeaters at the moment, just so someone new sees something when they first set up a node. The problem with Meshcore is, it is really quiet when no one is sending messages. It's only recently they've added the auto advert function to a repeater. Adverts are the only way you see another node, so if there's no adverts you never see anyone else.

[north hollow]

Tried meshcore for a day in Cheltenham but found no other nodes 😥

[bleak kite]

Meshcore's strength, i.e. it's minimal telemetry transmission, is also it's weakness. Companion nodes rely on the user manually advertising themselves, so you could have a node on for days and not see anyone else, even though they are there. I hope they do what they're talking about and have a once a day auto advert. At least if you keep your node on a couple of days, you should see someone if they're there.

[balmy osprey]

hmm, something ive noticed staying on meshtastic is that a lot of other nodes tend to be really quiet

im normally heard by most nodes with a positive DB, but the responses are like -14db to -16db

[bleak kite]

That is strange. I've just traceroot you and a get a strange path to you, but a direct path back with -3.5db. Are you using a boosted output?

[balmy osprey]

im fudging it a bit by not factoring my antenna gain into the set tx value (its at 27dbm)

so im technically over, but because its within a attic i think the ERP measured from outside would be below the limit, i should probably factor in the antenna gain

i do have boosted RX enabled as its a mains powered node

[bleak kite]

I don't seem to be able to get any consistent results with traceroot. The return path seems to report the wrong information to me. I thought it worked a lot better than that a while ago?

[hollow tiger]

Does anyone use Meshtastic in Cheltenham?

[balmy osprey]

oh

is router_late new?

[balmy osprey]

aaaaand, last has set their node as a router in central Bristol

[past badge]

Aye, same place same hardware, interesting...

[past badge]

Ok, my observations on this is, my SNR 'there' and 'back' when I was a few hundred meters away from ppool node was -10ish both ways. Interestingly pinging 'newport' showed a similar SNR. Now I'm within a few meters of newport and 14km of pontypool and both respond with between 6-7 SNR. i would expect to see ppool drop significantly from here. Not sure how accurate it is...

[north hollow]

Me! 👋 I'm TwBi

[hollow tiger]

I saw 1 node while I visited today something like Decoded

[balmy osprey]

I do see a lot more nodes after sunset

and further away

[glossy timber]

Yes, it's fairly recent. Was added in December 2024.

[balmy osprey]

yeah, im seeing a network improvement with a lot of former routers moving to it

[gleaming hare]

FYI that discord invite link appears to be invalid, ah sorry didn’t realise there were two links. Yeah the top one (your discord link) is still broken. The official meshcore one is fine

Working now, maybe there was some kinda glitch 🤷🏽‍♂️ argh update wrong post.

[balmy osprey]

thinking about moving to meshcore now after the defcon stuff 😬

although waiting for meshcore to have something like the portduino package for my main node

[high river]

Where's the independent assurance that any LoRa software is secure?

[balmy osprey]

its less that and more the very bad design flaw that made me move

(not signing infrastructure packets, making the key sharing not great)

[high river]

No it isn't

Everything is insecure until it's independently proved otherwise

[balmy osprey]

https://partyon.xyz/@nullagent/115005174102950908

nullagent (@[email protected])

I've been busy as hell this past week.

A lot of people have been asking hard questions about the security of LoRa systems when they hear about mesh radios.

I'm not one to trust the marketing so I and several friends put together two new LoRa tools to help us audit the security claims of LoRa mesh systems!

🤘🏿 📡 ✨

#radio #cybersecurity #privacy #meshtastic #lorapipe #meshmarauder #lora #mesh

PartyOn · Aug 10, 2025, 3:28 PM

[high river]

I guess that part of it depends what each programme is trying to do. If either is striving to be an off-grid signal.org then OK. I've not read any vision statement for MT or MC and without referring back it's kinda just throwing rocks.. which is the way of things these days.

[manic lance]

https://partyon.xyz/@nullagent/115005735327254173

nullagent (@[email protected])

-# ↩ Adam Gessaman :vcoffee:
Yes, meshcore needs more review but the design+code appears to match the marketing.

I don't see any obvious way to do the same attacks on meshcore, needs more thinking about seems very hard to exploit.

I could have written the meshtastic exploits a year ago but I didn't want to release any meshtastic exploits until there was a viable alternative.

@adam

PartyOn · Aug 10, 2025, 5:50 PM

[digital thicket]

MeshCore in the UK is is basically what we tried to achieve with Meshtastic but failed due to the fundamentals not really aligning into the reality of a restricted and congested band

Since the switch to the new narrow transmission profile, we've got strong links from Manchester and all the way over into Leeds - it's crazy good

My initial thoughts was it was going to fragment things, but I've been really happy with the app (which are higher quality at least on iOS), firmware and especially the communication. It's so reliable that I have to remind myself that it's working on Lora and not the internet.

Anyway - just try it out rather than dismissing it entirely and I think you'll be as impressed as I am

[gray delta]

When we've finished some of the main items on the improvement list, would you consider a coordinated trial of Meshtastic on that network?

It seemed to me that a lot of the "improvement" initially was down to additional high-level nodes, but I'd be interested in seeing a comparison at some point.

[digital thicket]

I'm always up for testing other options

I did make a big push recently to try and use Meshtastic but the experience wasn't what I'd hoped it would have been after being away for 6-12 months

[gray delta]

Fair enough. Like I say, we've got a Big List, and some stuff is changing, so might be worth coming back again in a while.

[digital thicket]

I do love the new firmware though - really nice little UI elements

Yeah definitely. If only we could solve the issue of people repeating crap at ground level and soaking up hops

I'll keep my ear to the ground as always

[gray delta]

We're working on some of that, but there's a lot of misunderstanding / misinformation to sort through. I know that doesn't affect the average mesher 😉

[digital thicket]

To get out of my valley I have to repeat twice, before I've even reached the outside world.... you see my problem already hopefully 🙂

[digital thicket]

That’s a huge gap filled but I know it’s not very detailed. I’m away from home atm and this is from home assistant

[gray delta]

Thanks for typing all that out. Some of the issues you listed are on the list of improvements: reducing telemetry, improving repeats, "infrastructure" nodes getting free hops to push messages further.

As far as the infrastructure stuff goes, what you've said about Meshcore is interesting, but it's taken me a few months to really understand what's going on there.

Sorry, my replies are in between mopping up cereal...

2yo decided to wear breakfast today.

Anyway, I realise I'm just repeating myself here, so feel free to drop in again at some point, and maybe see if the changes are anything you're interested in.

The NarrowFast preset settings are in a pull request, yes.

Fwiw, all the setting testing was taking place last year til a certain YouTuber tried medium fast for 6 days and declared it not worth it...

But yeah, some of the other meshes are trying out "EdgeFast" settings, and we'll see how it goes.

[bleak kite]

My Meshcore map this morning. 300+ messages in the last 24 hours on public. 2-way conversations with London, Bradford, Manchester and Yorkshire. Meshcore preset is EU/UK narrow if anyone fancies trying it.

Hops are insane.

[hollow tiger]

What frequency was everyone using my node is on 869.463 long fast I can’t see any nodes currently

[gray delta]

Centre frequency is 869.525

For longfast

Unless you're trying NarrowFast (which we've put on hold til we get a preset sorted)

Or you're on about Meshcore... In which case you're probably in the wrong place.

[hollow tiger]

I’m on Meshtastic, I tried meshcore. Going to make a meshcore tbeam supreme also

Bristol we had a guy using router mode, I changed my node to stop using router mode in cities. Instead of using client or at least router late, he just took his node down. He was a radio ram so pretty much made it so I cannot speak to anyone on the west of Bristol

[gray delta]

Yeah, some people are like that, unfortunately. It's a public frequency, and if you want to use a public mesh, you got the public on it 😉

The EdgeFast stuff is here, btw:
https://www.meshhubmids.com/edge.html

It's kind of over now, until we can sort out a proper preset.

[rustic cave]

Yeah thats the problem we had in Swansea.
Tried using an unused subband - great for locals in the club, not so great for new stations, visitors and DX
So decision was go back to public band. The brothers causing havoc, on the public band, were shown how to have a private out-of-band mesh, and they moved there and everyone was happy.
Then meshtastic almost died its death over the pki stuff. Meshcore is a no goer.

[gray delta]

What was the issue with pki? Too many broken padlocks?

[rustic cave]

im not entirely sure, it confused everyone more than anything.
you had to delete the ndoe and wait for it to come back.
but this confused people and they just left their nodes as is, and the nodes stopped forwarding/routing traffic

[gray delta]

Hmmm

Hopefully the next round of firmware updates will fix that - broken padlocks might be going away.

[rustic cave]

i think if you upgraded the node, early bug the pki changed randomly, but it caused a lot of people to abandon nodes

[gray delta]

Which is jam tomorrow, obvs.

[gray delta]

Yeah that's not good.

[rustic cave]

eventually some of the cheap heltec nodes, just randomly died, so not as many nodes around as there used to be

[gray delta]

Doh.

[rustic cave]

think i have 1x heltec left, the rak 4630 and 19007 boards running just fine

[gray delta]

Well, the obvious answer is moar nodes.

[rustic cave]

might come back, some new memebers in radio club and people asking about meshtastic

think there are 3x meshcore users, i can see 80-90 mestastic nodes between local -> west wales -> south west england

[gray delta]

Sounds like it's still out there, waiting...

[rustic cave]

works best on a lift, or when theres one in a plane above us

can then reach ireland and jersey/guernsey

furthest node currently is 40miles west. east im blocked by margam hills

need a node in lynton/minehead to go around the large hills

[hollow tiger]

How hard is it to localise a radio transmission? About 1 year ago I could send messages easily and connect to 80 nodes after 2 hours of doing a nodedb reset. Now I’m lucky to see 5 in 24hours

[small fulcrum]

i hear most people in the Bristol area have jumped ship to meshcore now.. is that right?

[gray delta]

Difficult to say. Meshtastic people come and go.

They're as fickle as the RF gods they fail to worship.

[hollow tiger]

I will set up a meshcore node then also!

[gray delta]

As you like 🙂

[stiff thorn]

Hi from Wells Somerset just starting out

[spare roost]

Yes, it's going well Tbh. Covers most of country now. Can actually chat with people in Manchester, Hastings, Isle of Wight.

[flat root]

Is there a more accurate SW / Wales coverage map? This one seems to be the only one that works? https://meshmap.net/

[gray delta]

People don't switch on oktomqtt.