us - NYC metro

[twin root]

if you want to use encryption, even with the "public" nodes, all you need to do is create and key up your own channel

IE. Lets say me and a buddy want encrypted comms, but want to use the NYCB repeater because its in a great spot. We would create a secondary channel with our own encryption on the same Lora channel.

Now, the NYCB repeater will repeat our encyrpted messages, and only he and I will be able to decrypt them

This works even if the mesh nodes dont have the default longfast channel set up. As long as

• You are on the same lora channel
• You are using the same comm type (longfast)

all of your encrypted messages will traverse the mesh normally but their contents will be encrypted. Youll be able to use the whole ass network privately.

[karmic junco]

ohhhh.

[twin root]

For DM's and nodeinfo like names, GPS location, etc its a bit different. if you want that encrypted you need to set the default channel (the first channel) to your encrypted channel. then all that shit will be encrypted too.

[karmic junco]

if you are A trying to reach C, and brookfield is in the middle, I think I got this part now- Lets say your Z in range of A trying to reach Y in reach of C, can the message go Z-->A--B--C---Y?

[twin root]

can you clarify your question, not understanding exactly sorry

[karmic junco]

if B is the node in the middle (b for brookfield) if A tried to reach C on the same lora/longfast combo, it would go from A->B->C

I guess what Im asking is , that it would traverse the mesh as usual.

[wise crater]

I got a message from WILL too today when I was passing through Central Park

I also got a message from RAY2 at CPW & 66th and also at FDR and 71st. Either really high or on the move!

[misty gorge]

I'm Ray!

[wise crater]

Oh that’s hilarious 🤣

Here are updates for this week

Oh so Ray, I got you first at FDR and 96th and assumed that was the Science snd Math school right there, and then got you on the west side of the park.

It was 2184 that I picked up on 71st and FDR

[misty gorge]

I got your DM but can't reply cuz my primary channel isn't LongFast

I tried to message you via LongFast but didn't get a reply.

[twin root]

yes

it would traverse the mesh as usual. Regardless of encyption, regardless if you even have the default longfast channel programmed into the mesh device.

[karmic junco]

Thanks. Going to have to re read everything again. Don't know how I could have gotten that fundamentally wrong.

[misty gorge]

The whole Meshtastic Channel and Lora Channel thing is confusing sometimes. Meshtastic Channel is not actually a channel in the traditional radio sense.

[floral tinsel]

Is the Brookfield device up? I’m on the Jersey city side trying to see it

[cerulean thorn]

Haven’t seen it in a couple days but keep in mind I’m in the fringe coverage area

[floral tinsel]

Also helps if the SMA connector for your antenna isn’t broken

[cerulean thorn]

I almost thought that was an indictment for a minute 😂

[cerulean thorn]

Oof

Did the traces rip up also?

[floral tinsel]

Time to go to harber freight

[cerulean thorn]

I see green, I hope I’m wrong

[floral tinsel]

I don’t think so

[cerulean thorn]

I used to work for a medical company building their devices, and Meshtastic is a hobby now, yet I haven’t read the board datasheets 🤣

Don’t forget troop ducting is a thing even at 900mhz

Tropo

Making contacts again around sunset. The grey line is real

[floral tinsel]

damn

[floral tinsel]

Is this what broke? https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/HUBER%2BSUHNER/85_SMA-50-0-103-111_NE?qs=1Kr7Jg1SGW%252BBk3qUf2bXJA%3D%3D

[karmic junco]

I think it will still work with the two pins. Just dont power it on before then

[floral tinsel]

Yeah i guess i need to go get a soldering kit

[floral tinsel]

@karmic junco i ordered some sma connectors off ebay... guess i'll be soldering one on

[celest furnace]

had a fun weekend and hit a few other nodes with the CLVR four leaf clover t-echo. Shoutout to B333, EMS1, NYCB, FEEB, 986A, H201

[twin root]

🙂 great! Dont have your nodeinfo in my nodeDB but glad we got halfway there. I was doing a lot of testing last night so sorry if anyone received my spam

[misty gorge]

I didn't get either of you over here.

[cerulean thorn]

ive talked to H2O1 once

my first contact

[dark bobcat]

Does anyone know if H2O1 is mobile? Received a hit probably 2weeks ago but couldn’t get an ack back. I’m in mid Nassau……. Wantagh area

[cerulean thorn]

yes

when I made contact he said he was at a park

(on staten island)

[cerulean thorn]

t-echo cleared customs

[cerulean thorn]

T-echo arrived!

Going to walk to a hill on a nearby park with an overlook of manhattan. I’m going to hang out there for a bit.

[floral tinsel]

Where did you order from

[dark bobcat]

Not much around yet. Met one guy a bit west of me….. we can hit easily. His buddies are further west and he can’t hit them yet even w a 10dbi Omni. Other than that a handful of what I assume are drivebys that happen to hit. We have all the congestion of the city and lack the tall buildings so it’ll be tougher.

[dark bobcat]

Only about 1.5 miles. His guys I think are about 5 miles west of him.

I definitely can’t hit the city. Finally got my 5.8 Omni onto the chimney the other day, so it’s about 23 or so feet up. That’s the limit of my vertical reach.

I’ll have to check los to farmingdale. Republic is possible. Maybe even Belmont.

The more the better. I’m have a bunch of nodes……just nowhere to put them yet.

What town are you in

[cerulean thorn]

Amazon

Went to a great spot rather close to manhattan and received absolutely nothing

Lmao

[loud blade]

i got one message from you and a few position updates. from hoboken

[dark bobcat]

That’s me to republic. Both antennas 20 feet up.

@glass dagger the park doesn’t look good. Although I just picked a spot in the middle

[dark bobcat]

Sounds good. Let me know if you hit anything and we’ll compare notes

[cerulean thorn]

awesome. I remember where that was. glad things are working! so cool.

I made a big loop today around the neighborhood trying to see what was out there

[floral tinsel]

i'm in nassau.. once i get my t-beam fixed and heltec hw i'll set it up

[karmic junco]

If your on the north shore of Nassau you may touch my node

[karmic junco]

No I'm in the queesn side

But Nassau like queens is very flat .. hard to get signals out

[cerulean thorn]

flat is good, provided you can get your antenna elevated. flat will allow the signal to go further. terrain is the enemy, unless you're on a hilltop (or otherwise elevated)

[karmic junco]

No I'm barely above sea level

There is very little room in this thing.

[cerulean thorn]

That looks awesome though.

[misty gorge]

Made contact with the 2184 node last night. He said he was located around 90th and Lexington in Manhattan.

[twin root]

Nice! Direct or through hops?

Will have a matrix bridge for myself as well as weather sensors and will be pushing weather data to the mesh. Solar powered, rigging up the Rokland 9dbi antenna in conjunction with a HaLo bridge so I can do remote admin.

[misty gorge]

Couldn't trace route it. But no way it was point to point between my node and his. Very likely at least one hop.

[cerulean thorn]

Me and some misconfigured node in manhattan

The brookfield place node B333 appears to have some sort of issue too

[twin root]

Yes, and there is a raspberry pi and software defined radio attached in that box as well so it will consume a decent amount of power, need the big batteries

I would recommend taking it off of router mode if you have it set like thay

That*

That causes problems with people on this side of the water who can reach Brooklyn for example, frok being able to reach there

Possibly* it's better to test without it on and see if turning it on is a good idea

I can run the metrics when I get my box up (finishing something quickly at work then I'll be ready to go up to the roof!)

[karmic junco]

whats the RPI and SDR doing?

[cerulean thorn]

Oh okay. I had someone tell me the wrong info then. Sorry for any misunderstanding

I will keep an eye out

I am very near to where i believe a stealth repeater is placed. Im gonna ping a few times and send a few messages. Last time it was able to reach into hoboken. This is an experiment which will probably not work.

Got a little party going on

I ordered a much more efficient PCB antenna which should show up tomorrow

It is not ruggedized; i just wanna see how it functions. Remind me to review it

[twin root]

Yeah, there is a good amount of discussion to reword that verbiage.

Regardless of what is good for a node, you will get routed through. That means even if there is a better path to a node, your node will recieve and retransmit that packet first. In a closed-loop system, where you are 100% aware of all of the nodes and all of the locations, making that decision can be done. In a public mesh environment, what actually ends up happening is that setting a node up like that decreases the maximum range of the whole mesh significantly by forcing routing instead of letting the flood routing do its thing.

I have experience in a big public mesh at burning man with 70+ nodes, and the reason why it became totally inoperable at the end was too many router nodes. Heres a small writeup:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z0RmvJbMkrmmk8yb8p5oIDouN8ZeaSyV4whmvPxL-oo/edit#heading=h.5z312bdiei4s

Hope that makes sense. If you have any other questions about the routing let me know.

(Also there is a lot of facebook-based discussion about a large public mesh in the UK that is suffering because of too many router nodes, even though they are in good spots.) Its best for the flood routing to do its thing, if you are the best route for a packet to take the packet will take it automatically.

The repeater mode will not help with high channel utilization much, it exists mostly to speed up the processing of the packets on your end as your node doesnt even process them (pretty cool feature). Not really meant for what were doing

[twin root]

Just radio stuff nice to have an SDR on the roof

maybs ill set up an APRS igate or something

[twin root]

Decided not to put the node up tonight the roof is pretty scary at night, will do in the morning if the weather is good

[loud blade]

thats me but i’m not sure why the old node name is showing. i renamed it about a week ago

[twin root]

he probably hasnt gotten your nodeinfo yet

it happens

[loud blade]

ah makes sense

[karmic junco]

Would a router sleep command be useful?

Like when it starts to have this effect that it figures out to stop being a router for a random interval?

[karmic junco]

If your doing sdr, are you doing an igate for it?

[twin root]

Technically its only supposed to be set if your 100% sure you know better than the flood routing and you WANT that to happen. The routing does not take into consideration the GPS location of the nodes.

[twin root]

Maybe, or ill do something else, not sure, just want it up there first and then ill figure it out

[karmic junco]

Only reason I ask is because I wasn't exactly sure what I would exactly want either.

Like Wingate was intriguing. But I don't know of how much direct use.

One of the odder things is a small html server.

If you've ever had a flight delay or some other nonsense, or like some other events which cuts you off from communications, it's a good gateway to relay information for a large group of people

[twin root]

... an html server over RF?

[karmic junco]

Open wifi network. Captcha login.

[twin root]

I have heard of winlink but unsure what your reffering to with the html service

[karmic junco]

No.. wait you wanted to do aprs over meshtasric?

[twin root]

no

[karmic junco]

I thought the sdr was separste

[twin root]

This hardware has both Meshtastic hardware and an SDR

yes seperate

you wanna serve html over meshtastic?

[karmic junco]

So for some comm-in-the-box things have other functionality.

No.. but you could do mqtt of the messages on meshtastic go to a web page

[twin root]

yea 100%, interesting use case

[karmic junco]

If you run a local broker

[twin root]

U should check out the Matrix relay project for Meshtastic if you wanna mess around with that it has a lot of cool functionality

Even without MQTT, what your describing would be really easy to do

100% doable in a weekend

[twin root]

this is actually possible and people do this, they where doing it at burning man

someone had an APRS <-> Meshtastic igate

[karmic junco]

There are a lot of parts I'm only vaguely familiar with.

There are a lot of parts I'm only vaguely familiar with.

And it's very very vague

[karmic junco]

On a large scale I can see this being very problematic.

[twin root]

He was running a weather station which was cool but yeah, the whole network got clogged totally and you coudlnt even send a message because everyone had a "repeater" at their camp

[karmic junco]

There's nobody to control that. Could you imagine this was actually used for something with more demanding applications?

Like in Ukraine?

I mean a couple of nodes setup as repeaters and you've taken the net down.

I always thought burning man was large but not that large.

For internet stuff, satellite is the way. No single land based weather event isntsking it out. And if it's astroids we're all fucked.

[twin root]

There was over 100 individual nodes in my nodeDB by the end of the event, just max at once was around 70

[twin root]

This project is really not designed for public meshes, if we all communicate were good but in a real situation you would not be using the default LoRa channel and default key for the channel.

[karmic junco]

What was the ch utilization with so many people?

[karmic junco]

In an emergency it would be difficult to access remote nodes...

So how it's configured is how it will be. Lol

[twin root]

you can configure nodes remotely

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/remote-admin/

[karmic junco]

Anyone fu-r2?

I must have made contact just didn't look

On thu

[twin root]

I have a way of conducting tests that I can try out. and yeah, thats a lot of routers and is probably unecessary/causing issues. Its a public mesh so

https://github.com/artiommocrenco/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter?tab=readme-ov-file

This is a cool tool for being able to export a lot of data and do analysis.

Ill get this set up once I get my node installed tommorow

Id say leave it for now, we collect some data, and then we can try another mode.

But my prediction is that although you might be seeing all of these, prioritized routing is causing your downstream nodes to potentially not route correctly, but only one way to find out is collecting that data

[twin root]

Also as for the upgrade... I'm getting your node inside of my house now with nodes with no antenna... That thing is powerful!

[twin root]

Node is up!

[misty gorge]

where is this again?

[twin root]

7 Floors up so nothing crazy but hopefully will still help 🙂

im hitting NYDB fully which is great

[misty gorge]

which solar panel is that?

[twin root]

NYC Brookfield*

Oh I did some fuckin RESEARCH but I found the one company that makes independantly certified monocrystaline panels that actually output their rating consistently

from a company called Voltaic

that is a 6v 6w one

also wrote this neat webapp to monitor it

[misty gorge]

yea, I was looking at those panels. The batteries they make are supposed to be nice also, if you want to power via USB.

[twin root]

I did my own setup for the batteries, really wanted LiFePo4

they used to make an LiFePo4 solar charge controller but they discontinued it

[misty gorge]

really.. my simple lipo setups with the RAk solar have been fine

[twin root]

well, I dont want this thing to freeze, get dendrites and then catch fire

[misty gorge]

it never charges to 100%, but with the low power RAK units and large batteries.. seems fine.

[twin root]

im also saftey-obsessed

[misty gorge]

Mine survived 20 degree days.

hasn't seen summer heat yet.

[twin root]

1 data point.... they will fail eventually, the NE is not designed for LiPo's

[misty gorge]

yeah.. we will see.

I think by the time these completely die.. I'll need to take the nodes down for firmware update or hardware update.

[twin root]

yeah im more worried about fires personally than the battery dying

[misty gorge]

assuming the heat doesn't kill them this summer.

[twin root]

Now that I have it up, I think it is possible that you being in router mode may be limiting reach here.

Lets say A sends a message and B sees a router rebroadcast immediatly then B wont retransmit. But if B doesnt see anyone else rebroadcast after a second or two it'll go ahead and broadcast. Essientially having it in router-client is preventing a lot of rebroadcasts covering what your node cant see

[twin root]

Not yet, I'm going to wait a few days at current power draw to ensure that my solar setup is good before I add any more software and increase power draw

It's looking good right now but it's a very sunny day

[karmic junco]

the Keithmon board supports Lifepo4 voltages

[twin root]

Yeah I've been working with him, have 2 of his kits, but they are not the right fit for this project because of power draw

They are really fuckin clean though, I got some LTO cells off of him too, it's easily the best solution IMO for a just-node setup

[karmic junco]

Right, because of your desire to still run a RPI

[twin root]

Yeah, and also a SDR, HaLo Radio, Etc.

[karmic junco]

Do you think its crazy that I envision it just running off 12V?

[twin root]

Like directly? It would be possible yeah, would need a lot of LiFe cells to get to that voltage tho

[karmic junco]

4 tecnically.

It just depends on capacity and draw.

Like given where your antenna is mounted, you could easily tap the light bulb or the ac units there for AC power.

oh shit.. why didn't I think of tihs.. should have taken apart one of the broken LED light modules and mount a mini LORA module.. hahaha

Might not have particularly long range, but can be placed almost anywhere!

[twin root]

I can't.

The Light bulbs and outlets don't work, the AC is on 210v 2 phase on a disconnecter.

I went through all of this lol

[karmic junco]

wait.. 2 phase?

did you try the 24VAC control wires?

[twin root]

That's not a bad idea to mess with those, that being said my electrician told me not to fuck with it 🤣

Never thought of the 24vac controls, that's a good idea.

[karmic junco]

Those are hooked up to a 24VAC supply transformer- they never shut down

[minor inlet]

I believe this will address the concern you raised.

[twin root]

Wow mike, that's great info, I hadn't seen that PR

[cerulean thorn]

been toying around with heltecs and a t-echo that fried itself. am currently working on a solar powered RAK node which will live on my fire escape. No line of sight to the Verrazzano bridge deck, but due to where I live (Near John Paul Jones "cannonball" Park) I hope it will help out down here. there is a lack of good nodes with long range in my area.

fingers crossed

I received a message via meshtastic from someone who I'm assuming was driving over the bridge

they gave me some information on how to build a 1watt node

a whole freakin watt!

I hope this doesn't end up like CB radio

with people running 1000W linear amps

lmao

my windows mostly face south, towards the bridge and staten island

so I don't have much of a choice but to focus on marine traffic, the bridge, and the ramp leading to the bridge

I would like to try to be somewhat of a link between staten island and brooklyn. it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility

from here i can occasionally pick up staten island and manhattan

thinking about using 2 nodes in my place, , both with yagis. but i need to characterize the performance more fully first

(one aiming south, one aiming west)

/rant

also if anyone wants to do any tests or anything like that (re:range) let me know

[twin root]

Its possible the node I will put up in JC this week will hit you

It has unobstructed LoS to the bridge

[cerulean thorn]

Awesome

Time will tell. New hardware arriving this week which is more sensitive

[cerulean thorn]

Hello friends. RAK is set up

With taoglas antenna 🙂

6w solar panel is choochin'

[karmic junco]

wow. Ok, I think I feebs node is definately hitting all the right sots

I just dont know all the name of nodes

aand someone has mqqt on...

becuase Im getting 3910km away

[cerulean thorn]

3ca0 is my new RAK. Short name BKB

[karmic junco]

nah, dont see it

but I do see WA2JNF

but like an hr ago

Im getting a checkmark

and... that same call sign goes to a repeater too

did you get a message that said "nice im only a couple months in"?

I think someone else was talking and I just got a bite of a message

whts strange is that it says 2 hours ago. I have two meshtastic devices 53bc and Car1

Im indoors so I keep one in the car to mesh.

[twin root]

Just ignore MQTT

its a setting in the node settings

I have that set in all of my nodes

[twin root]

the JC node is not up yet, waiting on a cable

[twin root]

yea im hitting 0 of those nodes lol

maybe this node in JC will make a big difference, well see

[karmic junco]

the annoyance is who is on mqqt

maybe not annoyance, but...

I totally get it if your private, but as a public node, this really is too much

[twin root]

yea, its really cringe, but the good thing is there is a setting to ignore MQTT packets

on the device

your device will just never recieve or retransmit/process them

[twin root]

picking up a new one in manhattan - pretty consistent, at the macys

[twin root]

yea i hit 3 new ones tonight, NYV1, BMK1 and ML01

[karmic junco]

Someone had a device that says tdec.. the intriguing part is the 4.82v

[misty gorge]

maybe using some other power source other than lithium?

[karmic junco]

Possibly I guess. A lil low for 5v.

[cerulean thorn]

Yeah I've been picking that up as well from by the Verrazzano.

[cerulean thorn]

heading to manhattan and bringing my node

[proven grove]

I work Tuesday-Thursday in Times Square, so you may see 'n317' pop up from time to time. Live up in Westchester so I'll be setting up a permanent node pretty high up soon. Waiting on hardware. I live in a river town, but not close enough to the river itself to hit JC unfortunately. Well, at least I don't think so, but we'll see once I get it set up. I'll need to bug you guys for the best settings.

[cerulean thorn]

Unrelated

[karmic junco]

Sounds like our current political situation!

Hopefully our shipments weren't on that ship in MD..

[twin root]

I gotta refactor my setup.... this weather has been bad and power generation on solar has been really bad... even with a 10w panel its not getting enough power when we have 3-5 days of consecutive overcast

[karmic junco]

I barely see your panel...

[karmic junco]

I don't know if that's morning or night, but it looks like morning, which means your panel is facing. ... North?

Well it would be south if you took that pic in the evening.

If it's south facing, disregard my comment.

[twin root]

Yeah, south

[karmic junco]

And 10w wasn't enough to keep the rak up?

[floral tinsel]

Are you guys running firmware 2.2 or 2.3? With the Mqtt change I’m curious

[twin root]

I and many other nodes that I have in my nodeDB are using 2.3 because we either do not use or ignore MQTT

[twin root]

RPI consumes 4 watts

[twin root]

JC node is up!

[karmic junco]

ohhh. I didn't think you were going to power it up already. you put a RPI4 in there?

[twin root]

No a 3B as it has lower power consumption, just not low enough

Underclockez the CPU, etc

[twin root]

200ft AGL

Antenna placement is suboptimal

But that was the safest way to mount it

[cerulean thorn]

I just got a "Hello world"

"Hello!"

was it you?

it just says "from ???"

if it was you then i am receiving in bay ridge

[twin root]

Yes

That was us

@cerulean thorn must not have your node info yet/vice versa

But you'll get it eventually, can you send a message out and I'll let you know

That's awesome we made that connection, as we have a direct connection to Brookfield place, so you'll have that too.

[cerulean thorn]

yeah im seeing it now

i have 2 of 4 nodes running, with another portable one on the way

[twin root]

Ah okay, we don't have your yet. We might not be able to receive your messages but you can hear ours

[cerulean thorn]

"BKBB" is my solar RAK

[twin root]

We are transmitting at 2 watts QRP so its going pretty far

Can you try sending a message and I'll let u know if we get it

[cerulean thorn]

its on the east side of my building facing the onramp for the verrazzano (it just has better line of sight which is why I put it there)

I will try again

my t-echo faces south

[twin root]

Got it. Yeah, we haven't gotten anything. It's half good news as we know we can hit one way

We just need higher gain RX

[cerulean thorn]

I have a license so I might get a stationg2

it would help me to get back to you

[twin root]

Yea, we're using a station G1,and the legal limit is 1w into the line, but you can up that to whatever you want via a higher gain antenna with no lisc

So at 4dbi gain we're right at the 2W mark

Would be cool to bridge NJ and BK tho 🙂

[cerulean thorn]

for sure

I have decent antennas

from digikey

it infuriates me that so many units ship with trash antennas

[twin root]

Nice. We have a few we're messing around with from Rokland

[twin root]

Yeahhhhhh it's so bad

[cerulean thorn]

it's so bad for newbies who would be easily discouraged

[twin root]

These from AliExpress for mobile have been a game changer

[cerulean thorn]

i am regularly receiving your pings

the 'last seen' is keeping up pretty closely with the actual time, within 2-3 min or so

[twin root]

Nice, of which node? We have 2 here

There should be "FEEB" and "full"

GULL*

[cerulean thorn]

FEEB

"Feeb on Meshtastic Discord"

f33b

snr 6.00dB

rssi -58dB

[twin root]

Oh strange, that's my personal node, not the big 1 watt node

I'll put it in the balcony maybe it'll get something

[twin root]

Interesting 🤔

I'll move some stuff around and see what happens

025C is the big node

[cerulean thorn]

Ive been attempting to message you for about 30min in dm and in longfast

[twin root]

Yea we have not RXd

I'll tx again

[cerulean thorn]

just trying to see what gets through

Weather plays a role.

[twin root]

Definetly

[cerulean thorn]

Wet antenna 😦

[karmic junco]

Zero w or zero 2 is the way as long as it does what you need. The power is a fraction of the 3

[twin root]

Ya your 100% right, I am just gonna try and eliminate it all together, but those are great

[karmic junco]

We're you actually running anything, or just leaving it idle?

[twin root]

Webserver, Prometheus exporter, and a matrix bridge

[karmic junco]

Just a local webserver?

[twin root]

Yea

ill move these workloads to my homelab

I was orig. gonna use it for an SDR but it was not pwoerful enough

[twin root]

this: https://github.com/ayysasha/lifepo4wered-web

[karmic junco]

Fascinating.

Some folks are running sdr on the zero

[misty gorge]

I got a ping from Brookfield 33 min ago here in Astoria!

NYCB!

the stars aligned correctly for a few min I guess.

maybe there was a node that somehow bridged the gap? i dono.

[cerulean thorn]

tropo ducting from the thunderstorm

[karmic junco]

Lets say you did put a SDR in there, was it just to be closer to the external antenna?

you'd still have to be within WIFI range, to connect to it.

[karmic junco]

I'm only asking to pick your brains because I don't know what I'm doing

[cerulean thorn]

Getting interesting

[twin root]

Dont have your nodeinfo yet, we might be hitting hoplimit

that thing far in west orange is also going through the JC node

My solar node is EATING up this sun right now after 3 days of being off

[twin root]

@minor inlet sorry I sent your node like 30 DM;s over the past 2 weeks I just use it to test routes

[placid olive]

Hey everyone

[karmic junco]

Anyone see 53bc?

[misty gorge]

Not here.

[twin root]

I live on the 2nd floor and my building is 8 stories, I just wanted the SDR on the roof

Its not within wifi range, need to use HaLoW to get a network connection to it

[karmic junco]

It funny I just bought a Hallow bridge

I'm in downtown Flatbush today. I'm getting nobody except the node in my car a few blocks away

[cerulean thorn]

Same here. BKBB is hungry

[karmic junco]

Earthquake

[floral tinsel]

I think I’m the only one who didn’t feel it

I was walking into my office lol

[misty gorge]

Quake

My coworkers in the city didn't feel it.

I felt it in my apt in Queens. Family out in Nassau County felt it also.

[karmic junco]

I feit i in the city

whole buildin gshook

but it depends on the age of the building- older buildings are solid, they provide no flex.

phone and internet were spotty because people were trying to call each other

txt messages died

and it wasnt even "grid down" it was just "grid congestion"

[cerulean thorn]

I was working at hospital when the earthquake happened, nobody felt anything

my wife felt it at the apartment; said everything was shaking and it sounded like a train was going under the building (building is brick, 1960's era)

[floral tinsel]

i def felt the 4.0 at 6pm

my desk at work was shaking

[misty gorge]

I felt the 4.0 also. Felt like large truck bouncing by. The earlier quake felt like my upstairs neighbor was rolling something really large across the floor.

[karmic junco]

It was a good wakeup call for me as I have slacked and am unprepared

[misty gorge]

Same...

I wouldn't have been able to effectively bug out if I needed to.

[floral tinsel]

Hrmm… I’m back near Brookfield place

Trying to see why I can’t see it on the app

[proven grove]

I think it's a pipe dream to think my node will ever hit y'all.

[floral tinsel]

I’m in lower Manhattan lol

At the moment

[proven grove]

I just meant in general. I'll be in midtown Tuesday-Thursday this week. Gonna try to get to the roof top (~60th floor) in Times Square to see what I can pick up.

[fiery steeple]

Hi all. I live in Jersey City. Got my Heltec. Will be walking around with it and also trying a dipole at home. I can pickup Brookfield place and the JC HP nodes but don't get any ACK on my group messages on Long Fast. I am interested in building a stationary node, just can't guarantee roof access

[floral tinsel]

From your apt or on street level?

I was near Brookfield and jc yesterday w a heltec and beam… couldn’t see either site…. Wondering if my config is out of whack

[fiery steeple]

I was at street level. Could at least get the location information from Brookfield and the JC hospital. But it is very spotty with the stock antenna and all the buildings. Close to the Hudson I had the most success

From my apartment with a dipole I got the hospital and Brookfield location info but was also spotty

[floral tinsel]

I have a t-beam w a 5dbi antenna and a heltec

The t-beam is on a private MQTT server the Heltec is on the public one… the two devices see each other over RF but I haven’t been able to see anything else

I was walking around jc yesterday (near grove st path) and near wtc no dice

[floral tinsel]

@fiery steeple I’d be curious to see your Heltec configuration

[cerulean thorn]

picking up that West Orange, NJ node has been neat, even if the packets were relayed

~20mi from my QTH

impressive considering the noise floor and output power of these radios

reminds me of FT8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FT8

its an FSK mode used in amateur radio

I've contacted australia with it

on 100watts

i want to try strapping a node to a kite next week

for shits n giggles

(do not go higher than 400ft)

[floral tinsel]

I love FT8

@cerulean thorn you running your mesh gear in licensed mode or no?

[cerulean thorn]

No since I want to use encryption and it works well enough for now

I’ll play around with it more in the future

[floral tinsel]

@cerulean thorn ahh... btw is your channel zero set to default encryption?

[cerulean thorn]

Yes

[floral tinsel]

I had the encryption disabled (not in amateur mode anyway). I wonder if that was why I couldent see Brookfield or JC on sat

[twin root]

@fiery steeple if you could see it but get no acknowledgement when sending a message, that means your antenna and positioning needs some looking into. The JC node (I set it up) is running at 2W (and so is the Brookfield place). So it can "shout" a message really loud but you need to be able to shout back at it too.

[twin root]

I would say it's possible you have a config issue as well, maybe try and do a config reset and start from scratch

[floral tinsel]

I had mqtt on, but not the public server

So if I have Mqtt on at all Brookfield and co will ignore me?

[twin root]

To be completely honest I'm unsure how that mechanism works specifically, if it will ignore only the MQTT or if it will ignore your node entirely

That being said, @placid olive saw your node in BK and it's in his nodeDB for the JC repeater

[floral tinsel]

He saw my node?

Which one I had two on me lol

[twin root]

@placid olive can u check ur nodeDB for his node

He mentioned it this morning to me but didn't specify

Also idk if u know this node but we hit it consistently out here

[placid olive]

What should I look for in my nodeDB?

[twin root]

His node name, Brooklyn bubbler

[placid olive]

It's BKBB BrooklynBubblerBase

last seen 46hrs ago

[floral tinsel]

No that’s not my mode name lol

[floral tinsel]

I’ll dm you

[twin root]

My bad I'm confused lol

[floral tinsel]

Sounds like I’m gonna wipe and reconfigure my t-beam next time I’m down there

Between mqtt and channel settings

[fiery steeple]

Thanks all, yeah I figured my tx power is weak sauce off the default Hetlec. Im still happy that I rx your nodes. Ill need to upgrade to make contact.

Or go for a walk lol

[twin root]

You could also try a new antenna! The stock antenna is dogshit

[fiery steeple]

Ill try that tonight.

[floral tinsel]

I had a 5dBi antenna on my t-beam lol

[cerulean thorn]

thats not me

im further south

[cerulean thorn]

New FW out

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

[twin root]

Fuckin hell I just updated today when I was on the roof 🤣

[misty gorge]

I have a node on a water tower. I'm really not looking forward to updating that one.

Looks like the bug fixes in the Alpha aren't really critical.

that's good.

[twin root]

Really

Is this a clandestine node or did you get permission?

That's really cool either way

[misty gorge]

I got permission.. but I'd still have to climb up there

[twin root]

How did you go about getting permission to do that? That's awesome

[misty gorge]

Its a building water tower.. not like apublic one

[twin root]

Ohhhhhhh

[misty gorge]

yea, I wish it was the big ones.. haha

RAK's can't be updated wirelessly right?

[twin root]

They can be over Bluetooth with a special tool IIRC

[misty gorge]

Hmmm. I'll need to look into that.

[proven grove]

Coincidentally, I stumbled on that topic last night, here's the app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nrf-device-firmware-update/id1624454660

[misty gorge]

Ahh.. need an apple device. I an android.

[twin root]

I bought an iPod touch to fuck around with Meshtastic IOS and then realized after I buy it that it's been deprecated and doesn't support the latest IOS version and can't accept the mesh app 😦

[proven grove]

Got that too: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nordicsemi.android.dfu&hl=en&gl=US

Developer page for reference: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Device-Firmware-Update

[misty gorge]

Oh shit.. trying it now. I hope it works.

[proven grove]

Wandering around Times Square and I'm not seeing any nodes 😕 I'm street level so my expectations aren't high haha

[misty gorge]

Yeaaa.. that's not gonna work well.

[proven grove]

I'll try getting to the roof of my office shortly. Just annoying because my desk is on 16, roof is in a diff elevator bank and on 58th floor

[misty gorge]

Sounds like you're a prime candidate to provide service to Times Square. 😉

[proven grove]

My company would never, ever, let me put something on the roof haha

Thought about a stealth node, but it's too empty up there to hide it anywhere.

[misty gorge]

If you don't get it close to an edge, it probably won't service the ground area around it very well anyway.

[proven grove]

I'd be happy if it serviced my office and repeated me to the NJ/NYC nodes lol

[misty gorge]

It may make more sense to install the node by a window that may oversee a large area.

may be better than sitting low on a high roof

[proven grove]

Brought both my ultra portable and the behemoth with me today trying to pick anything up. Surprisingly the techo picked up more weak random nodes than the Rak

Trying to give the Rak and a knock off Alfa 5dbi a chance to reach out and touch someone lol

[misty gorge]

android wireless update seeeeems to be running.

Have to use the older client from github.

It looks like it worked!

it's slow but way better than unstrapping the node and using a USB cable. Hopefully I can do it without climbing up to the node. But even if I need to get closer, I won't need to open the box.

[proven grove]

Could you put a stronger BLE antenna on it?

[misty gorge]

Might be worth doing. But that could maybe result in it receiving more noise. so may be a wash.

The update on my test node completed in under 5 min.

Even if I needed to climb up there and just be near it bor 5 min, it better than unmounting it and messing with it.

[proven grove]

Progress is progress

I'm struggling to understand why my techo is getting better coverage than my Rak. (Supposedly) Lesser antenna, and it's been just about right next to the Rak all day, the Raks by the window still and doesn't see anything. Roof doesn't look like it's accessible today unfortunately

[misty gorge]

You sure the antenna connector is connected well on the RAK?

both on the right LORA channel?

[proven grove]

I am, but it's a knock-off, so my hopes weren't too high.

I have an admin and a private channel primary, but I have LongFaat as channel 1, default key, frequency slot 20.

[misty gorge]

Frequency slot 20 is key. Yea.. maybe it's the antenna.

[proven grove]

Switched over to the other one I got from Rokland, it's the 40cm (3.2dbi) whip. Will see if it's any better.

[misty gorge]

can you get a window facing south west? I think there are strong nodes in that direction.

[proven grove]

Think it's my height to be honest. 16th floor around here is kinda short lol

[misty gorge]

is that 7 TS?

or 4?

haha

[proven grove]

What I was looking at? Think it's the roof of the knickerbocker

[twin root]

What's your node names? I hit a few new ones today

[proven grove]

"Ali3n Invader" is one, the other was "MeshNAzEcho".
I suck at naming things lol.

The two I hit with my Echo were generically named

[twin root]

Ok, I am assuming you are east of me rn, I'm at work with my node, I will move it to an easy facing window

My mood is named f33b so ID should be easy

[proven grove]

I'm already on the train heading home.

[twin root]

I work near the macys

Ahhh okay no worries

[proven grove]

I'm in tomorrow. I'm in the H&M building

[twin root]

Got it, I'm not but maybe you will get a decent line to one of the more powerful nodes

[proven grove]

I'm gonna try to get to the roof at some point this week, so I have hope.

Just wish I knew which antenna I have is good or garbage lol

[twin root]

The gizont antennas are awsome

I'll grab a link

[proven grove]

Trying to avoid buying a tinyvna for this.

[twin root]

https://a.aliexpress.com/_m01bXyi

[twin root]

Others have done the work for you! https://github.com/meshtastic/antenna-reports

[proven grove]

HA I got that already from Digikey, just never knew the name of it off the top of my head

I'll swap it out when I get home

This was the one I had on them today: https://store.rokland.com/products/2-5-dbi-sma-male-915-mhz-soft-flexible-whip-antenna-for-t-beam-t-echo-other-lora

The 20mm was on the echo and the 40mm was on the rak

[misty gorge]

Right.. So you're in 4 TS, right? So much potential.. not enough height.. Yea 16th floor aint shit around there. haha.

All the buildings around there are like 40+ floors.

[twin root]

lots of nodes out today!!!!

[proven grove]

And yet, I only saw 2 haha. One I couldn't get a location off of, the other was down by Tribeca-ish

[proven grove]

Im in 151 W 42nd, so I can get up to 58th floor roof and face the hudson, it's just finding the time to do so lol

[misty gorge]

Right, it's also known a 4 Times Square. 🙂 Damn.. would be really interesting if you could to get to the roof!

Please let us know if you plan to hit the roof so we can all keep an eye out. 🙂

[proven grove]

Been working here over a year and never knew that lol

I'll be sure to bring an actually decent antenna with me.

[misty gorge]

Hell.. if you find that you can see a bunch of queens and NJ nodes from there, I'd GIVE you the hardware to drop up there. Hehe.

I have a RAK outdoor solar enclosure with a RAK antenna. It's a pretty small box.

Unfortunately there is only a single 18650 in there.. and not much room for more.

[proven grove]

Like this one? lol

[misty gorge]

nah.. the newer one

its got a bigger panel.

[twin root]

A node at 151st that hit the stuff downtown would REALLY expand the mesh

I would also throw for some hardware if needed

[proven grove]

I just got this

I cant remember if it was from Rak direct or Rokland...

[misty gorge]

He's located in the heart of Times Square, 42nd street.

[proven grove]

I'd love to help, but Little uncertain about how the company I work for would handle that if i got caught.

[misty gorge]

Yea, thats the older one. people say that panel can't keep the battery topped up long term.

[proven grove]

thats just my luck... sigh

[misty gorge]

I have the newer one there the whole top is a solar panel. Its pretty nice.. but no idea if it will keep the battery topped indefinitely.

[misty gorge]

The hardware you currently have isn't going to be a problem I think. Like I said, I'd gladly donate hardware to you or chip in etc if you decide to put a node up there.

[proven grove]

trust me, i got VERY impatient waiting for 4631's that I now have a small fleet coming...

some as soon as tomorrow. Although, i have 4 heltec v3's, 1 WS, 1x LilyGo 1.6_2.1, A T-Deck and a T-Echo...

Oh and one Rak19007/Rak4631 already

[misty gorge]

You'e pretty bad. haha

Probably as bad as me. haha

[proven grove]

I dove in head first

2 of the heltecs were purchased to be repeaters

[misty gorge]

https://store.rakwireless.com/products/unify-enclosure-ip67-150x100x45mm-with-pre-mounted-m8-5-pin-and-rp-sma-antenna-ip-rated-connectors?m=5&h=unify-enclosure-modular-iot

That's the newer RAK solar enclosure.

[proven grove]

yea i def got it from Rokland then... bleh

[misty gorge]

I have heltecs but use RAK for battery life.

The G2 Ultra is a great daily unit. great battery life, switches to turn GPS on and off.

compact. no antenna to snap off. But the internal antenna is probably a negative too.

[proven grove]

I love the Rak stuff because it's so modular

[misty gorge]

Yeah, pretty stable too. I have had two nodes up without any problems for months now.

[proven grove]

Procuring them is a little tough at times too because they're popular

[misty gorge]

yeah. I think I'm okay with what I have right now. I have two G2 Ultra units, 2 T-echos, 4, 3 heltec v3s, 2 roof top RAKs, and 2 extra rak units.

[proven grove]

The heltec WS is going to be a repeater node I mount on the hill behind my house. Lots of trees, but very little earth on the same level as it

[proven grove]

So, if I wanted to outfit the outdoor node with a respectable solar panel and battery, would this suffice? It's 6V out, so I'd have to route through the battery, or I'd need a buck converter and go straight to the device but it looks like it's intended to go panel>battery>device https://a.co/d/1bdHDfL

[misty gorge]

That should work well on a RAK setup. Not sure if that's enough batter for a Haltec if you have a few cloudy stormy days.

[proven grove]

if i'm spending that kind of money, it'd be for the Rak lol

[misty gorge]

Should be super easy too. USB through wire gland, tighten it up and good to go.

No cutting connectors etc.

[proven grove]

Yea that's my thoughts exactly.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some better luck in my travels

[twin root]

love voltaic panels, they really output their ratings.

[proven grove]

That sealed it. Purchased lol.

[karmic junco]

Morning

[misty gorge]

Good morning.. While you were out, we completely built out the tri-state mesh network.

[karmic junco]

Ya I noticed you guys had a lot of progress. Made me all teary eyed! But it's just the pollen. Lol

Ive made zero progress. Didn't even visit the 🍕 we talked about

[misty gorge]

Your not hitting pizza spots is the biggest disappointment.

Hit this place last week: https://www.figlianyc.com/

[karmic junco]

Astoria has become a fucktatd of parking...

15pcs 5V 1A TP4056 Charging Module Type-C USB 18650 Lithium Battery Charger Board with Protection (Type-C USB) https://a.co/d/iULQrQk

Trying to figure out if these have pass through charging.

[misty gorge]

This one was pretty eye opening.

[misty gorge]

This place is right next to the train station.

[karmic junco]

For a while I was pretty into making it.. even made my own mozzarella

But it's cheaper to buy. A gallon of milk gives you like 6 oz. Lol

[misty gorge]

garlic confit is such a cheat code.

[karmic junco]

Ya. The garlic is what caught my eye.

That's the one thing I do on my smoker which comes out amazing but nobody else eats it

[misty gorge]

their dough was NYC slice crunch and stiffness and chew.. no flop

but Neapolitan style.

[karmic junco]

Cut the tops off, toss in olive oil, sprinkle with salt, smoke for an hr at 200, squeeze it out ,mix in kerrygold butter apply to fresh crusty bread.

Smoked garlic bread.

[misty gorge]

Not just any butter.. Kerry Gold.. haha

That's that rich people butter.

[karmic junco]

Hahahhaha

If your going through all that.. use the good stuff

15pcs 5V 1A TP4056 Charging Module Type-C USB 18650 Lithium Battery Charger Board with Protection (Type-C USB) https://a.co/d/iULQrQk

Back to this.. you think this has pass through?

I'll post this in the solar forum.

[misty gorge]

Probably better. This is the pizza forum.

how many nodes are you planning to build??

[karmic junco]

Pizza works better for me anyhow

[karmic junco]

Well like many of my projects...

I have more goals than time or dedication.

My original simple goal was just to have enough distance to send messages back home.

[misty gorge]

what would you need to do to accomplish this?

[karmic junco]

Apparently my sea level elevation really sucks donkey nuts

[misty gorge]

Gotta get nodes on top of some buildings.

[karmic junco]

Ya. Literally 3/4 of a mile it gets high enough to reachthe top of the highest point of the throgsneck

But I don't have access or anyone who would let me do such ventures.

I'm trying to convince the public school lol

As part of an iot project

[misty gorge]

Soooo.. I know when I was a kid... If you introduced me to this.. I'd likely jam it.

I was just that kid. haha.. "Oh that frequency does this work on? Tell me more about this protocol..."

Someone should def teach kids about working with electronic components though..

[karmic junco]

Ya I have 6 pitops ready to rock

Bread boards etc

Time is my limit

[misty gorge]

You could....

have the kids build some sort of weather station or something.

with computer control.

and when it's time to put up the weather station, the meshtastic node goes up with it. 😉

I think the school would likely be more in to weather study than putting up a meshtastic node which kids may use to talk to "strangers"

You probably don't actually want to get kids involved in that.

But a weather station.. that sounds like a good school project.

and maybe an extra box goes up with it. 😉

[karmic junco]

Oh you and I think too much alike. Lol

No, but beconing weather data to my node connected to Mqtt would work

Thus the teachers and students can see their weather data on the interwebs.

From that standpoint it wouldn't be a public node, but can still help

There's also a ttnbased flood sensor array project

All fan fuckin tastic shit that I think kids will love

I wanted to give the kiddies all the tech and thoughts they can digest, so if they can dream it, it can be made.

[misty gorge]

@proven grove I think I got you over here.

[proven grove]

I'm seeing 12 nodes up here

[misty gorge]

I tired to send you a reply on longfast

not sure if you got it.

you're the 6ABE node, right?

[twin root]

Nice! Glad to make your contact, a lot of nodes out here!

[misty gorge]

You made contact with him?

[twin root]

With alien, yeah

[misty gorge]

Nice!

I tried him on LongFast but no response. I saw his messages though.

[twin root]

Unfortunately did not get node info though

[proven grove]

Yes

[misty gorge]

Are you still up there?

[proven grove]

Nah had to head out to lunch lol

No room to add a node unfortunately

[misty gorge]

Yea especialy since it looks like a public common area.

Next time you're up there give us a heads up and set up the node in router client mode

see if you can bridge the east and west.

[twin root]

do not do this please 🙂

Setting it into router client mode will fuck more things up than it will help

Let the flood routing do its thing - it will bridge it, putting it into router client mode will hurt everyones ability to reach each other

[misty gorge]

Really? I thought was just a timing thing

[twin root]

It will cause nodes to not retransmit if they see that a router node has recieved their message

there is bascially 0 reason to use it in a public mesh, every router node hurts everyone elses ability to reach other nodes

Outside of someone setting up a node on a sattelite or on the top of 1 world trade, there is no reason to have one

without router node

with router mode

sorry for the shit drawing but hope that makes sense

[misty gorge]

Hmm maybe I should switch all my nodes to client then

[twin root]

router mode should realistically only be used for private meshes in very very specific circumstances

[twin root]

yeah that is the general reccomendation

[misty gorge]

time to do some remote node admin

Done.

[proven grove]

I've been following this direction since I started setting up nodes. Just sucks that S&F's router mode requires the node being in Router/Client Router.

[twin root]

Yeah that is very annoying. That being said, I think I would be more upset about that if S&F was more useful, need a bit of work IMO

[proven grove]

Fair point. I'm just hopeful lol

Wait... I saw the Astoria nodes from up there too? Heh that's pretty cool

[misty gorge]

That's me.

[proven grove]

Ahhh ok. That makes sense now haha

Is there an easier way to switch between nodes paired to a phone outside of rebooting one and having to clear your local app data?

[misty gorge]

I believe switching nodes will update your node data in the app

but will not clear the messages

at least that seems the case in the android app.

[proven grove]

But what about when you have two with you? Lol

I just checked my nodedb and I last heard from the JC node at 2:01pm, when I was walking to GCT at street level. So that's even cooler lol

[misty gorge]

I think you can only connect to one at a time. I just click the gear icon under the cloud and choose another node I have paired.

[proven grove]

yea mine doesnt allow that (iOS)

[floral tinsel]

Where were you ?

[proven grove]

on 43rd, cant remember exactly what cross street at that time

[floral tinsel]

Got it… I’m still trying to figure out why I couldn’t hear JC or Brookfield… think it was my channel settings. I might try driving near a node out here on LI tonight.

[proven grove]

i saw them both initially from the 58th floor of a building in midtown. Think for the walk to GCT i got lucky.

Was someone talking about a pico pi w node?

[floral tinsel]

well... i was able to hit 2 of the nodes in Garden City... guess it was my channel settings

[misty gorge]

@proven grove picked up your node while coming in to the office. (I work in the area also)

[proven grove]

was that you that pinged the default channel? I had my buzzer on for testing a ringtone and I was away from my desk

[misty gorge]

I sent a ping twice. Never got ack symbol

But I did see your node on my list.

[karmic junco]

What a particularly interesting weather morning b

[misty gorge]

last night was super interesting.

[floral tinsel]

I hate rain

On my off day too

I guess im gonna head back to Brookfield lol

Not seeing the peng node in Central Park (at 59/Lex) right now

Saw one node west of Jamaica on LIRR

[karmic junco]

https://youtube.com/shorts/riu_5u1KsY4?si=mPMnaTkqBRxZdGmz

https://youtube.com/shorts/aP89BV7b_pc?si=k-VK5WpaF17t73Mh

and then there's lodi pizza.

might have to make a NJ day

[floral tinsel]

Does the JC node respond to trace routes?

[floral tinsel]

The fact that I see the JC node is making me go to Jersey

[floral tinsel]

I was in Hoboken… could not see your node…. I see JC and Brookfield without issue

Actually I saw the one that ends in 75ac apparently

[twin root]

My node is off today, not enough solar

[floral tinsel]

Anyway I had victory

[twin root]

Yay 🥳🥳🥳

[twin root]

Yes

U hit a lot of nodes through the JC one today?

[floral tinsel]

I hit some… didn’t count lol

@twin root I didn’t get any of the nodes in Brooklyn but I got one on the lower east side not on the map

[karmic junco]

anyone play with allstar?

[twin root]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E

[karmic junco]

https://a.co/d/hwhfBaJ

Not that all-star..

[floral tinsel]

i have some friends who have all star nodes

but i don't

[misty gorge]

I have DMR hotspot.. Kinda cool to be able to talk to anyone anywhere, but it's not radio. 😛

[karmic junco]

Also sucks that dme hotspot is half the cost of analog all-star.. lol

[twin root]

2 newish nodes

[cerulean thorn]

At Prospect Park right now with a9e8. See if you can reach me

[karmic junco]

Let's see if I can improve coverage to the Bronx from North Queens

Low elevation hurts everything

[karmic junco]

Jeebus how much do I loose in transmission through shingles?

[twin root]

Depends on how wet they are

[karmic junco]

I installed 2 of those 9db antennas. Their currently indoors, but I really need to move em outside. This performance is incredibly crappy

But I have tall trees and low elevation and they are a recepie of crap.

I think perhaps the only good thing that their on ESP32 chips so they have the storing function

[twin root]

and inbuilt wifi

which is cool if u need it

[karmic junco]

I guess for MQTT.

I did see more CH utilization- so more lora Packets flowing through somewhere

[karmic junco]

Holy !@#. Found some videos of kensington you guys mentioned...

https://youtube.com/shorts/v1RYH6uWgRI?si=khxLc_nGJ6ur3Okc

[cerulean thorn]

My rak fell off the outer window sill and hasn’t transmitted for 4 days (wind). Need to perform an operation in the next couple days to bring it back up. /blog

it didn’t hit the ground cuz it’s attached to a solar panel. I had inadequate strain relief

so it was hanging for about a day. lol

I need to set up a permanode at work

or maybe a few. Facing each direction

[twin root]

I think there needs to be a "longlines" mode

like the old ATT longlines https://personal.garrettfuller.org/blog/2018/01/19/att-long-lines-a-forgotten-system/

Ie. 2 nodes that can only speak to each other but repeat everything they hear

like bridging 2 sides of a building

[karmic junco]

Isn't that kinda like Mqtt?

[twin root]

no, without internet

[karmic junco]

Ohh microwave

[cerulean thorn]

Looking good

Pando

Latin for “I spread”

[karmic junco]

If anyone sees a node called 53bc or 742C please let me know

[twin root]

I have neither in my nodeDB's

[karmic junco]

I saw a c530 todu

Today

Nothing else in my list all the way into downtown Brooklyn.

[karmic junco]

Brookfield showed up but it was momentary. Could not ask for route data

[karmic junco]

Apparently it had the memory of all the last nodes it saw at the factory in China. Lol

[twin root]

That was me 🙂

[twin root]

That's fucking hilarious 😂😂😂

[cerulean thorn]

yea that is pretty wild

[snow forum]

Hey all, I'm brand new to Meshtastic. I just talked to RSG2 "Ray" in Astoria. I've also connected to AMR1 "Astoria Meshtastic 001". I'm in Lenox Hill.

[misty gorge]

I'm Ray. AMR1 is one of my nodes. That's how you were chatting with me while I was sitting in a pizzaria in astoria. haha

[cerulean thorn]

the mesh is certainly becoming more usable as of late

[misty gorge]

BBLab1?

[karmic junco]

There's few of us so the mesh is still intriguing

If we had some real density it would be a problem.

I will say my newest node higher up has now made my choice util around 9

Channel

[misty gorge]

Picked up Brookfield yesterday while I was around the Chelsea area.

[karmic junco]

Brookfield I think so far must have the top hits

[misty gorge]

I tried to send out a few pings when I was at the Whitney, but didn't seem to reach any nodes.

But at some point, my node did pick up Brookfield.

We around Chelsea and Union Square.

[proven grove]

From the 16th floor in Times Square, I'm able to see the Brookfield Place node, as well as the Jersey City node. God I love this Alfa antenna haha

[karmic junco]

on a side note, my RPIZ2W + a usb 818 module for allstar uses about .20-.25A in idle, and about .5A in transmit. (at 5V).

If my math is correct, that is about 2.5W at idle and 5W while transmitting.

that is with wifi connected with the allstar

[misty gorge]

Wooo.. making it in to astoria.

Or more accurately, astoria is making it to you.

[karmic junco]

I think that's when I'm I was on the gcp connecting to the bqe

Not bad for the t echo stock antenna in a car

[misty gorge]

that makes sense. hehe

[twin root]

I am hitting astora Meshtastic right now from my new office above Madison square park

[karmic junco]

What route?

[twin root]

Can't get a trace

But I'm getting metadata

[proven grove]

Who's using the newer Rak unified solar enclosure here? Was it you @misty gorge ? The pre-drilled RP-SMA is nice, but a little limiting. Wishing it came with a type-N port. Just was wondering what antenna you have on yours

[misty gorge]

I have the RAK blade on mine.

I think if I were to perm mount I would use something else.

But i got the enclosure as a temp node for testing areas.

[proven grove]

Yea this is just going to be a "quick and dirty" repeater in a semi-opportune spot in my back yard. The perm is going to be much more elegant. Turns out the Voltaic panel I got is discontinued, so I ordered their newer 9W panel and the Rak Green Energy power module. I'll probably put 2x nitecore 21700's in it (10000mah), with an Alfa 3dbi fiberglass outdoor antenna in a teeny tiny enclosure.

[karmic junco]

Morning! Sun is shining!

[fiery steeple]

Made contact with GULL in Jersey City with a heltec v3 and an ali express antenna.

[misty gorge]

Is "Druzy" here?

[proven grove]

That's my coworker.

@ancient galleon - This is the chat I was referring to.

[ancient galleon]

Ty

[ancient galleon]

Whats up 😂

[misty gorge]

Picked you up around Gantry this weekend

Your node helped me get back to my Astoria nodes.

[ancient galleon]

Yeah I live across the street from Gantry in one of the TFC buildings, I set my node up on my windowsill when the weather is nice and I can have the windows open

Problem I have rn (was talking to @proven grove about this) is that I get 0 signal when my windows are closed, so I’m looking at getting a little weatherproof enclosure and some batteries so I can leave my device outside. I’ve got a clear view of manhattan from my place

[misty gorge]

Get one of those RAK solar enclosures

Or.. covert roof node. Haha

[ancient galleon]

Was no joke thinking about climbing up the pepsiCo sign and strapping one on there

I do have access to a couple rooftops so maybe that’s a better starting place 😂

[misty gorge]

It's so busy all the time.

[ancient galleon]

Not at 4am

[misty gorge]

True. Haha

[ancient galleon]

But more realistically I’ll look into make a self sufficient enclosure and check for places to put it on the rooftops in that area

[misty gorge]

That would be amazing

[misty gorge]

We need someone on roosevelt island to better bridge manhattan and queens.

[proven grove]

I need someone on the other side of the river (closer to the Tappan Zee bridge) to try to bounce a signal off of to try to reach manhattan.
Probably would help to get a node or two up in Hell's Kitchen too.

[karmic junco]

Oh that's where you are. Hahah. That sign is still neon?

Sorry closest I can get is throgsneck , 20 feet elevation

[ancient galleon]

yessir

as bright as the sun, could probably put a tiny solar panel infront of it and power a radio indefinitely 😂

[ancient galleon]

Got a hit on this with a location in the east river

[twin root]

ya thats @final flower 🙂

Also who is BB1 and BBL?

[cerulean thorn]

27mi

From my t-echo at work on an upper floor

[final flower]

Nice. I was around Roosevelt island. Picked your node up as well

[ancient galleon]

Thats awesome man! I saw the emoji and the name and was intrigued

[misty gorge]

I'm seeing these also.

[final flower]

Good thing I scrolled back through this thread and found this convo. I currently have my base and mobile nodes set to router. I’ll change them to client now. Thanks for the info!

[proven grove]

My mobile repeater rig is ready. (Didn't mean for that to rhyme as well as it did)

[misty gorge]

is that for the car!!?

can you show us the under side?

are those magnets, or rubber feet?

[proven grove]

Yep

[proven grove]

Rubber covered magnets. I'll take a pic in a few

[misty gorge]

Have you tested the solar on that enclosure? I haven't tested mine to make sure it was self sufficient

[proven grove]

I did, but just for a little (3 days) wasn't overly sunny, but also wasn't in optimal position. It held its own. But I also took advantage of the peripheral pigtail and threw a user and reset button on there to wake/sleep/reset it when I need to without opening it up.

[misty gorge]

You gonna try to use it while the car is moving?

How much battery power did you fit in there.

[final flower]

I have similar magnets on my mobile node. Doesn’t move on the car. These magnets are really strong.

[floral tinsel]

I think I picked up your node on the train about 30 mins ago

Eh more like an hour ago

[final flower]

Where was the train? Curious how far I'm making it out.

[floral tinsel]

LIRR

somewhere between Jamaica and bellmore lol

Using a t-beam w a 5dBi antenna

Probably near Valley Stream LIRR?

[final flower]

Cool. 2.5mi, roughly

[floral tinsel]

I think I’ve hit you before when I’ve been in west Hempstead

[final flower]

What’s your node name?

[floral tinsel]

N2SPG T-Beam

@final flower

[misty gorge]

Link to magnet setup?

[final flower]

Yup. Picked you up about 20 days ago on the SSP

[floral tinsel]

Makes sense

[final flower]

Here’s the link to the magnets on the mobile node I’m using. @plucky ginkgo is building them and selling the complete node if you’re interested. I can link his Etsy too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C49B62GF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

[misty gorge]

I have too many extra parts to buy a prebuilt node. I'd need to smack myself in the face first.

[final flower]

Haha yeah I hear ya. It was a pretty easy build. He made a 3D base plate for the enclosure. Keeps everything secured nicely.

https://www.printables.com/model/815769-enclosure-case-insert-for-rak-wisblock-meshtastic

[misty gorge]

Looks good.. I may convert one of my nodes to a car top node.

[misty gorge]

@final flower picked you up when I was downtown just a few min ago.

Picked up a few nodes while down there or on my way down there. Pretty cool.

[final flower]

Cool. There’s pretty good coverage around lower Manhattan. I’ll be around that area most of the day. What’s your node name?

[misty gorge]

RSG2

You down there for the 5 boro tour?

[final flower]

Yeah for the bike tour.
I don’t see you on my node list.

[misty gorge]

Have fun! I dropped my GF off and going back to sleep.

[proven grove]

Picked this up at home (Dobbs Ferry, Westchester) the other night. Definitely my longest hit so far.

[proven grove]

https://a.co/d/2EoOlLK

I threw mine in the back yard for the time being to test charging and bad weather to test my seals before I introduce the factor of wind into the equation.

[misty gorge]

Looks like at least one guy is using Meshtastic as a tracker for the 5 boro

KD2WQI on here?

[floral tinsel]

I saw him yesterday in lower manhattan (two devices)

[misty gorge]

He had a 3rd device out there today then. There was a D8E3 device in addition to the 54FB device.

Did you get a location of the 54FB device? I picked it up when it was in queens today. I assume he/she is riding or working the 5 Boro bike tour.

[floral tinsel]

Let me check

[misty gorge]

Ah def different location than where I picked it up. Cool.

I picked it up around the Polasky Bridge

[floral tinsel]

I was on the NYU bus from Manhattan to Brooklyn when I picked that up (hey my alumni card actually does something useful!)

[misty gorge]

Meshtastic Pokemon Go

haha

[cerulean thorn]

This is far

[floral tinsel]

I’m gonna have to see if I see a1f1 when I get home

[final flower]

Apparently someone was in an airplane today with a node

A lot of people are seeing nodes pretty far away because of that. Pretty cool

[final flower]

Heard you at 7:40pm

[floral tinsel]

Was somewhere on the southern state I think

@final flower I got your base at 803

[cerulean thorn]

Zoinks

[twin root]

Lol that's fucking crazy

[proven grove]

Just hit this one directly while on the 16th floor smack dab in the middle of Times Square.

[misty gorge]

niiice.

[undone dew]

Any one in the Staten Island area? I see one node but it's been off for weeks. Hoping to get some better coverage across the island by working with some people.

[proven grove]

So sad, I went over the GWB today and got 0 new nodes. didn't even see any of the LES ones pop up, and I thought the Jersey City one would for sure refresh. Then again, my wife was driving ~70 and I didn't get a chance to send anything to longfast. Also came up empty coming over the Tappan Zee going through Rokland to Paramus.

[misty gorge]

I'm seeing more and more nodes in the NYC area now.

[floral tinsel]

it's fun to keep my tbeam clipped to my backpack and see what it picks up

[misty gorge]

Yea I walk around with my G2

[floral tinsel]

i don't pick up much on LI except my house lol

[misty gorge]

I picked up nodes by the Total Wine in Westbury

[floral tinsel]

i think i've picked up those nodes before

on stewart ave in garden city, right next to where compusa once was

[undone dew]

Just from the meshtastic's app map or are you using an online map as well?

[misty gorge]

just nodes my own node catches

[twin root]

@minor inlet yo next time you go to the office can you turn your node to client mode for a week or two? Want to test routing

Right now your snatch routing a lot of packets that i theorize should not be going through you, but only one way to find out

I wrote a script to run traceroutes for the current network and then will run it again once your in client mode, and we'll check the diff

[karmic junco]

I'm digging it... Magnetic mount?

[karmic junco]

Too bad you didn't strap a node to her to track her

[misty gorge]

I thought about it, but didn't think coverage was going to be good enough for it to be useful. Would have been cool to see what her node would have picked up as she rode around.

[karmic junco]

Wait I can get an alumni card.??

If anyone passes the throgs neck let me know if they see some nodes

[proven grove]

Yep, a little too high-profile still to put on top of my Tahoe. Need to rethink either the enclosure or the brackets for the magnets

[karmic junco]

If your willing for some fab work perhaps you can do the shark fin

I just plunked down 450 bucks almost for a new gl inet spitz

They make a 4x4 mimo +wifi antenna in a shark fin
.

[misty gorge]

I think the best form factor for a mag mount would be as thin as case as possible.

then an external antenna mounted with a clamp on a cross bar.

install via magnet and 4 nuts/bolts for the antenna mount.

You'd have the proper mounted antenna above the roof line, but the magnet body should be low enough to not catch much air as long as it's mounted towards the middle back.

[floral tinsel]

https://go.alumni.nyu.edu/Alumni-Card-Request.html

[karmic junco]

I guess it depends on the car, some cars have some big roof rails (i.e. Subaru out back). If you used 18650# you could almost just built something longer and thinner.

That said, I'm a little curious as given how hot things get on the roof whether a roof mounted solution is ideal.

Temps exceeding 120 are the norm under the sun

[misty gorge]

Something very flat with a solar panel on top to reflect/use some of that sun light. But yea gets hot.

[floral tinsel]

@karmic junco they said 1 week turnaround on digital alumni card, we'll see (i'm at the one week threshold)

@karmic junco I have a physical card but the ink with my name wore off and they only mail those once per quartert

[misty gorge]

Wonder if the solar storm stuff coming will do anything to our devices

[karmic junco]

The last event messed with radio in asia

[misty gorge]

When did that happen?

[proven grove]

debating on printing a white-ASA case, much slimmer than the Rak Solar one, following the same form factor with the solar panel mount though, like this one: https://www.printables.com/model/406311-meshtastic-vehicle-utility-node-enclosure-for-lora
need to rework the magnet mount though. and as for antenna, i'll likely use this:

the one in the link is only 35mm tall

[misty gorge]

Wow.. that thing is tiny. I'll bet it's not much more effective than the little haltec antennas.. but def looks sturdier.

[proven grove]

It's a solid 2db, seriously. I mean, I'm not hitting NJ from my house with it, but it's a good Omni for this use case

[misty gorge]

I've always said.. it's not the size that matters.. it's how you use it.

[karmic junco]

https://www.space.com/sun-x-class-solar-flare-may-6-2024-radio-blackouts

[misty gorge]

Interesting

[karmic junco]

they said its been happening all month, but exactly what frequency they mean by that I don't know. Would be below the usual UHF I use.

[misty gorge]

Yeah probably.

[karmic junco]

I got some evil look from the boss when she found out I bought the glinet spitz

and the two allstar nodes

[proven grove]

I still have no idea what an allstar node is...

[karmic junco]

It's basically a voip connector for analog ham radios

But each node connects to the all-star network. You can then dial up so to speak and bridge the two systems

So let's say your in Westchester and I'm in Staten Island. We're outside antenna range. If we setup the nodes, you can connect and rebroadcast

A voip repeater in a way

Similar to meshtastic and connecting to mqqt and now bridging devices that are outside of mesh range.

And in much the same way you can setup private all-star nodes .. like private mqqt gateways for meshtastic

[karmic junco]

https://nypost.com/2024/05/10/us-news/powerful-geomagnetic-storm-reaches-earth-with-possible-impact-on-gps-power-grids-through-saturday-evening/