us - NYC metro

[edgy blaze]

Noice. I’m dead south, but can see it!

[daring moth]

I need to keep practicing my soldering skills to complete the rest of the #1357744150887272570s. Luckily, @craggy cypress was willing to demonstrate how to solder solid copper wires to an existing PCB with tightly packed solder joints. For now the antenna is just flopping around, with the pigtail routed through a hole that conveniently already exists in the enclosure. Once I get better antennas, I'll make a more permanent installation.

[jaunty harness]

Awesome!! Was good to meet you, stuwho and Willard earlier - def worth trying to wrangle some folks to one of the soldering class nights

[daring moth]

The soldering classes are monthly. They're usually fully booked at least a few weeks in advance, if not more.

[jaunty harness]

ahhh, makes sense - still seems like good option for those looking to learn

OH! Can you add traceroutes to your metrics? I'd love to get some hard #s on those as there's def an uptick from people running Meshsense with the defaults (enabled to tr every node, every ... I think they might have bumped to 90-120mins? used to be 45?60m, forget right now)

[normal osprey]

i’m interested! I need to learn how to solder

[exotic merlin]

Traceroute metrics are already in there! Clocking in at 0.08% of traffic.

[midnight mural]

I have access to a 3D printer this week, any wisblock or other
Metastatic fan favorites I should print?

Also, anyone use any docker containers for Meshtastic or adjacent radio activities?

I stumbled upon r2cloud; has lora and SDR stuff

[daring moth]

There are at least a few makerspaces in NYC that should have 3D printers. I know at least for #1300525496945348648, non-members are allowed to 3D print stuff, but I forget the exact cost.

[daring moth]

def worth trying to wrangle some folks to one of the soldering class nights
I just counted, and there's almost 100 people that have chatted in this Discord channel alone. Just 10% of people signing up would fill one of the monthly soldering classes in its entirety.

[midnight mural]

I’m not in need of one, I’m sitting in front of one. I’m asking for stl files 🙃

I’m visiting my bff and his printer is not doing anything currently 😇

[daring moth]

I'm just saying you shouldn't need to rush all possible future 3D prints right this moment.

[midnight mural]

I’m not rushing, just wondering 🙂

[daring moth]

If you want something to print, make a gridfinity setup to store your Meshtastic device(s): https://gridfinity.perplexinglabs.com/

Well, that assumes you have Meshtastic hardware that's not in use.

[jaunty harness]

Anything from Alley Cat is amazing ~ https://www.printables.com/@AlleyCat but don't think shes released something for Wisblock, but there's plenty of things on printables https://www.printables.com/search/models?q=wisblock

[jaunty harness]

AHHH nice!!! But is that 0.08% total # or just ones that succeed? I've been noticing "bursts" like 10pm-12am where I get repeated TRs from specific clients, but they actually seem to succeed so been wondering what happens to the ones when the mesh is less reliable... am I even seeing them or are they not running Meshsense at the time

[whole basalt]

Nice to have met you guys last night at Hack M. 😃 Hope to meet up again, especially after I get more time using the Mesh.

[daring moth]

On the other hand, if anyone wants to volunteer, and assuming the folks at Hack Manhattan are okay with this, I have an interesting idea. A DIY Meshtastic node assembly workshop. Maybe using a LoRa module that's through-hole, so we wouldn't need to teach/learn soldering at the same time. Such as https://www.seeedstudio.com/Wio-SX1262-for-XIAO-p-6379.html.

[jaunty harness]

Same! If you wanna look into the pre-built 1W Raspi Hat stuff checkout #1174474453359526050 for Femtofox, Mesh-Adv-Pi-Hat, Rabbit Labs 1W Pit Hat - there's also a thread in #nrf52 for DIY LoRa modules & nRF Boards which is a rabbit hole of awesome DIY nodes people have done/currently doing

[whole basalt]

Thanks for the info - will do 👍

[tough acorn]

I just ordered the 1 watt pi top hat off of Etsy, should be an interesting toy...

[glossy pine]

This would be great

[twin root]

What are you doing to log and generate these?

[exotic merlin]

Thats just the traceroute packets I see from Hops's node, independent of if they worked out or not. Presumably a successful traceroute would result in me seeing at least a few packets on the way out or back.

[exotic merlin]

I wrote this to run the 🐇 Hops node.

I'm using the meshtastic library to connect to a Station G2 via the streaming interface over TCP and subscribe to the received packet events and log them to a sqlite database.

From there I load the sqlite database into a Pandas Dataframe within a Jupyter Notebook to mess around with the data and see what I can see.

I'm happy to share the raw packets and analysis code with folks if they're interested in taking a look.

[karmic junco]

Morning folks!

[amber edge]

love the use of dataframes and jupyter for this. curious to see the notebook if/whenever you get around to publishing it

[normal osprey]

How do I sign up for the soldering class? the link on their website goes to an old meetup link from last year.

[daring moth]

Check on their Meetup.com webpage that lists upcoming events.

[normal osprey]

I see it now, thanks!

[brazen spear]

Link?

[daring moth]

Likely one of the above.

[jaunty harness]

HAHA dude I will gladly build you one as thanks for helping out the mesh, but mentioned the Femtofox, Mesh-Adv and Rabbit Lab's just dropped 1W hat - all can be found in #1174474453359526050

Supermath101 - I've been thinking about through-hole DIYs and coming up short unfortunately. a.li3n might have some ideas but I've been working on an "awesome list" of DIYs but sadly none are through-hole

closest i've come up with would be the latest version of the MESHSTICK which uses ~$1.50 (currently) for PCB that's USB-SPI chip (CH341A) and ~$0.50 i2c flash and seems to have a piggyback PCB that's through hole and adapts the headers to piggyback PCB where a Wio1262 lives. So basically could have people do the through-hole to connect the PCBs and do Wio1262 to PCB on hotplate/by hand which is a little delicate cause of small pads

image which is probably more helpful that text

[daring moth]

What about the module linked above along with a nice!nano-compatible board with headers pre-soldered on?

[jaunty harness]

hrmmm doable - the promicro would needs it's headers soldered on. some of the xiao mcus would likely have the headers pre-soldered (i think there's some they do w/o headers though, like if you get a 3pack?) those would be another option, solder the header pins and then snap together your DIY node

[daring moth]

As for using the Xiao nRF52, there's already https://www.seeedstudio.com/XIAO-nRF52840-Wio-SX1262-Kit-for-Meshtastic-p-6400.html, but it's not much different from a RAKwireless board in terms of DIY.

[daring moth]

I don't have either, so maybe I'm wrong.

[jaunty harness]

The nRF kits aren’t shipping (yet, I’ve heard the 20th but my order hasn’t budged since placing it) but you can get 3 packs of the Xiao nRF52840 for ~$30 last I looked and those are shipped with the pins separate

esp32 + wio kit seems to have no pins on esp32, a single Xiao nRF52840 Plus seems to have no pins at all (not even in the little baggy) which I can't recall was something I selected or just how they shipped (might also have changed, both were preorders so from initial batchs)

[daring moth]

Or what about the Pico H? We'll just have to reroute the pins with jumper wires to match the pinout of the Waveshare LoRa Module.

[daring moth]

We should move this discussion to #1359529369047142501.

[tough acorn]

https://www.etsy.com/shop/FrequencyLabs?lid=azabtp132cw9&campaign_label=order_confirmation&utm_source=transactional&utm_campaign=etsy_transactional_order_confirmation_v4_complimentary_recs&utm_medium=email&%243p=e_sg&_branch_match_id=1423036572926851624&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA2WO3UrEQAyFn2b2ssV2ERSKCG6vfIeQTrPT4PyZmXGoFz67U1kvRAgkh3POR7acY3rse8pp7zDGzrJ%2F68f4pIbzGCeCZE7tDMKGPVooYqft6KjxWQ1zm1pr99PWwTWZthDbmoXeC3m9v%2BLSsrPlVY0v%2BIlLjnfjoOuDGu41uohsPFhcyDY%2FyEoCOvgri8PMwbdUyQ5SKKKpJbKgT6gPC%2B3N%2FMU0%2B3gE%2FmTgPxM%2Bzk27aNmRzyg7COl0gzlaubgD5ZDt6UvoSiLsDSwSaiKZLquhb2pOYn43AQAA

[brazen spear]

Yeah this is very cool if you threw on a poe hat for the pi. Would just need a beast of a battery pack to keep it running a few days during a blackout.

https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1282176912545808405

[tough acorn]

A friend just gave me a pair of 30 amp-hour LiFe cells out of an airplane that can be charged at -40 degrees C but they are bigger than any of the weather-proof cases that I have.

[daring moth]

Don't forget @porkcube's offer.

[tame brook]

Hey! I’m interested in meshtastic but have no idea what device would be worth investing in for nyc and the building density. Any advice for a newbie whose techiness peaked in the 90s?

[daring moth]

If you're okay with always needing a smartphone around (but no internet connectivity required after installing the Meshtastic app), then https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/seeed-studio/sensecap/card-tracker/ is a reasonable everyday carry node. Otherwise, if you want a standalone node, I'd recommend the LILYGO T-Deck Plus.

[tame brook]

Thank you so much!

[jaunty harness]

Welcome! Both of those are solid devices but does somewhat depend on what you're looking for in a device (minimal vs fully standalone and fancy ui). Some other options are RAK's Board One (rokland.com) and as well as the Heltec T114v2 and LilyGo T-Echo. Basically lots to choose from but of the lot the T1000E has the newest radio chip inside which has pretty amazing RX for it's size but not so great TX cause of it's diminutive size, but no matter the device the best you can do for reliable TX here (and in general with Meshtastic) is height with line of sight to similarly located radio.

[exotic merlin]

There was a request for Hops to send out a WX report in the mornings. I gave it a go but I don't think we have the data on the mesh to support it.

I don't want to get weather from the internet, there are much better ways to view that on your phone. I wanted to get weather from the Mesh, but unfortunately the nodes reporting conditions that reliably get packets to me seem to either be indoors or running on Solar, so not reliably sending weather info when it's relevant in the morning.

[exotic merlin]

Here you go: https://github.com/morria/Meshbook/blob/main/HopsPackets.ipynb The graphics don't render in github, so I'll try and get it onto some hosted jupyter rig if I can

[abstract iron]

my solar node is outside and has temp and humidity

if you can reach it... zlla s

[abstract iron]

can this bird be the channel mascot

[jaunty harness]

hah I think Goodest Doggo is the unofficial mascot even though no one has met the doggo

[rare sparrow]

And the Doggo only Woofs 😂

Never seen them talk

[jaunty harness]

upgraded meshtasticd on the femtofox window node last night, woke up and noticed it had reset my cfg and lost the 250+ node DB so... time to build it back up!

(it was 2.5.x -> 2.6.x, I just wasnt paying attention cause 1am)

[rare sparrow]

Might take a while to see me

Ur 3 hops away from me

🥹

[daring moth]

That's not to be confused with Hops, a Meshtastic node.

[jaunty harness]

hehe right now highest hops I'm seeing it SouthSlope cdef at 4 .. and I only know it's that node because no way I can forget the cdef shortname (and I build that faketec before giving to Gardener to install)

[normal osprey]

how many hops is the hop node away if the hop node can hop nodes?

[glossy pine]

Any recs for a device with a little more power to live permanently at my house

[daring moth]

Where are you planning on mounting it? On the roof of a single family house? Or, on the exterior of an apartment's window? Or indoors?

[glossy pine]

Most likely inside the apt window for this one

We’ll see what I can get my super to overlook

[daring moth]

Just say you want to mount a birdhouse, and do what was done in #1202833898376138752 message.

[daring moth]

How DIY are you willing to go?

[whole basalt]

Question- I'm thinking of getting a T-deck and noticed that you can order it with factory or Mesh firmware. What is the difference, and can I re-flash between the two? They also charge more for the Mesh.

[daring moth]

AFAIK, you can reflash between the two, and with Meshtastic pre-flashed, you're just paying for LILYGO to get permission to use the Meshtastic trademark on their product page.

[jaunty harness]

that's my understanding as well, flashing can be a little fiddley to get it into the right bootloader mode but it's nothing crazy, just a matter of getting the right button presses at the right time

[whole basalt]

OK - good to know 👍

[daring moth]

Also, unless you're okay with some DIY assembly, make sure to get the T-Deck Plus, not the regular T-Deck.

[jaunty harness]

is there any diff aside from the internal ipex connector?

[daring moth]

Battery and case included with the Plus, but not the base model.

[jaunty harness]

Ahhh!

[glossy pine]

Depends

[jaunty harness]

for prebuilt you're basically looking at ~.15W which you'd want an good antenna to help it out. otherwise it's something like a Station G2 (mixed opinions though the creator is active on this discord and helps people out) or a 1W PiHat / Femtofox (basically a pihat without the pi and a tiny linux box that's pokier than the OG Raspi cause less RAM though pretty equiv cpu despite a decade between their creation)

[jaunty harness]

oh huh, if they're hearing the CT nodes likely north side of Island - wonder if they hear that Weather Station near Brookhaven

[daring moth]

I think they've just spotted the nodes in CT on the MQTT maps.

[jaunty harness]

oh! good point, yeah could just be that

[daring moth]

Anyways, I've invited them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1jwq7ed/comment/mmkwesb/

[azure quest]

Have there been any bot ideas considerations? Like sentiment level by borough?

[jaunty harness]

heh, like teach hops how to bronx cheer? 😄

[exotic merlin]

You’re 3 hops from me. I assumed it was inside given the temps but maybe that bird has a fever?

[daring moth]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around

[exotic merlin]

Oh ZLLA S - that’s outside! We don’t have a reliable connection but I’ll keep an eye out to see if it improves as we get more nodes.

[azure quest]

Made this lil bot.

[rare sparrow]

Stonks!

[abstract iron]

that's weird let me check. it's definitely outside

I did notice that it can report a very high temperature in direct sunlight while also charging

but I don't think we have that today

maybe you have old data?

i like this device a lot. despite no weather rating it's been running for weeks now without any intervention

[jaunty harness]

hehe 419b that just did flyby is an ooold friend passing through to Austin

[jaunty harness]

so on the Femtofox it took 14hrs to hit 81 nodes on a rainy day, poor nRF52840s 80 node limit

[midnight mural]

I leave the city for a few days, come back, and you all fixed things while I was gone! Thanks!! 🤣

[abstract iron]

I'm in PA, trying to mesh up. you can RX crazy distances here in the woods... 18-30 miles

hoping to hit something with the 1 watt

[brazen spear]

They'll be connecting once we're up on electchester

[brazen spear]

What part of PA?

[exotic merlin]

😬 TIL about the "ATAK" plugin which has become 15% of traffic in the last 24 hours and is apparently some kind of warfare focused rig.

Looks like it's all from kazx-0cc4

[exotic merlin]

Weird distribution of hops for the packets reaching me.

That spike at 1 is all from Hops continuing to broadcast telemetry packets despite having tried my best to shut it off.

I don't know what's up with all of these nodes transmitting position to 7 hops.

I guess I expected hop counts to be more like concentric circles of increasing hop counts the further away a node is. Not completely random.

[karmic junco]

Did they push out any updates last month?

[jaunty harness]

yeah it spams position packets really frequently (like every 5 if not 1 minutes) and they're also running 7 hops so... you know... people in like 100 miles radius also get the spam

[jaunty harness]

2.6.4beta as of... last few days, smarter routing for DMs

[karmic junco]

So weird two of my tloras went dark.

[brazen spear]

Yes I just saw 2.64 is out!

[jaunty harness]

no more excuses not to upgrade those older pre-2.5 firmware nodes 8)

[brazen spear]

Do the repeaters I have set up need the upgrade?

[jaunty harness]

it'd be good to do when convenient, it's really more the unknown operated ROUTER_CLIENTs that really need to get their shit updated

also i'm gonna build your 1W PiHat in like an hour 8p

[daring moth]

Theoretically, they'll become irrelevant once 3.0 releases.

[brazen spear]

I can do it today. Is there an estimated time frame for 3.0?

[jaunty harness]

not even remotely anytime soon, but should also fix the issue with SX1276/8 if they actually change the sync word

[brazen spear]

Except I can't do olmstead bc it's now on a shelf in the nycmesh room waiting for deployment.

[daring moth]

I thought they said it'll be the next major release after 2.6. However, as 2.6 just got into the beta channel via 2.6.4, it'll probably be a while anyway.

[brazen spear]

Perhaps I'll wait a week to run the updates. So many times there's quickly a re-release shortly after once some bugs are recognized.

[jaunty harness]

2.6.4 is the first 2.6.x to be beta instead of alpha because it has already had a bunch of those 😄

[karmic junco]

What? It's fixed???

Or did I just misread. Lol

[jaunty harness]

Will be, if they implement the change to use default sync word as has been discusssed as the root cause of the issue with LR1110

[daring moth]

Should be in 3.0, but that'll be incompatible with all 2.x.x nodes.

[karmic junco]

And who knows how long. Before 3.0

[jaunty harness]

I’m not sure if there’s 2.7.x planned or right to 3.0 but some 3.0 stuff has already made it into 2.x (like the smart DM routing in 2.6) so hard to put estimate on time

[karmic junco]

I'm keeping fingers crossed as all my repeating base stations that are plugged in are affected

[jaunty harness]

yeah it's coming but, i wouldn't expect it for several months min

[amber edge]

@brazen spear are you in eastern bed stuy? i see you on the map, and i have a friend with rooftop access at lafayette/lewis. might try to convince her to add a solar node on her roof

[brazen spear]

That area is well covered with vernon. You can easily connect through most of bedstuy and bushwick to it with any pocket device.

[daring moth]

However, as long as every rooftop node sticks to CLIENT, extra redundancy wouldn't hurt, right?

[jaunty harness]

yeah CLIENTs all the way

[tropic gulch]

Gosh I wish I knew a local vendor that installed and maintained CCTV equipment

[jaunty harness]

i'm still waiting for MeshGuy.net to not just be a parked domain

[tropic gulch]

It's hilarious how fast us New Yorkers are at the side hustle

[jaunty harness]

we are the city that never sleeps (and unreliably meshes)

[tropic gulch]

Honestly @jaunty harness if you just anointed yourself as King admin of the five boro mesh and started charging for admission to zoom lectures I'd probably pay

[tropic gulch]

Wow what a coincidence just what I needed

[rare sparrow]

Only if they put a node in every outdoor CCTV location they installed 😉

[tropic gulch]

I think one of the local hack spaces should do a citywide RF meetup

[rare sparrow]

Coverage ++

[tropic gulch]

I did a ham radio meetup.com group before covid it had pretty good attendance

[jaunty harness]

i'm happy to build nodes gratis or at cost if people are actually deploying them, but no side hustle - i don't even have enough time for it

also really like that we're pretty adhoc and everyones just doing their own thing with meshtastic, but also have discord for some coordination

and there was 4 of us Tuesday at Hack Manhattan, with more planning/warning could def get a bigger meetup. supermath101 has expressed interest in trying to combine some sort of soldering class with a build your own node kinda thing, and i'm giving feedback and trying to help make that happen

[glossy pine]

I’d love to learn how to build them from the OGs

[jaunty harness]

another thing we could do is build the nodes and then give some/all of them to gardener to deploy at NYCMesh locations

def see some people wanting to keep theirs but some of us also dont need yet another node (side eyes a.li3n) so would be cool to have it also benefit the whole mesh with some extra nodes

[glossy pine]

Yeah love to get more deployments.

Def don’t need them for home need them out there doing work

[normal osprey]

gonna try to make the June soldering class. i’m out of town during the may class.

[frail grotto]

@exotic merlin yeah I'm trying out atak and it's meahtastic plugin

[daring moth]

Make sure to sign up via Meetup.com. I believe it's $10.

[glossy pine]

If anyone knows anyone who lives high up anywhere on either side of the East River let’s donate a device to their window

[normal osprey]

Domino Park fa5a will eventually live on my friends 35th floor balcony on the East River (and be renamed at that time)

[midnight mural]

That might help me TX from inside my apartment

[glossy pine]

My apt is the bane of my existence I’m sooooo close to being able to get to where I need

[midnight mural]

I am so pumped your 🌞node showed up again for me today, same as 🐇!!!

Tomorrow I’m picking up a t1000-e, trying that out as my everyday carry….summer is coming, I’m not carrying this wispocket this summer lol

Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island needs a solar node on the roof. Really atop the bridge there, but you get what I’m saying.

[normal osprey]

got the pizza ping

[glossy pine]

Nodes on top of the bridge towers would be soooo clutch

Can prob get a city council person to take interest

[amber edge]

That's probably NY state MTA/DOT, if that makes any difference

Does anyone have suggestions for how to secure a node to a roof?

[abstract iron]

Pizza you didn't fly over PA this morning did you?

🍕🍕👀

[midnight mural]

Totally 😎

Headed to so cal, I heard the mesh there is alive and well. Will report back 😎

[exotic merlin]

My Station G2 appears to be hosed after flashing 2.6

It’s able to be flashed again, but it won’t boot. I see Error … Could not open / read /prefs/uiconfig.proto on the serial console.

[jaunty harness]

that's normal, you're not running MUI so there's no uiconfig.proto

[exotic merlin]

oh. Well, it’s also not booting

[jaunty harness]

what happens after that... I guess really I'm asking to see the console log during boot

[exotic merlin]

https://gist.github.com/morria/f412d1fac9024a1d094b86222e3085a9

[jaunty harness]

the creator Neil is also on this discord so can try pinging them in #help but lemme see if I notice anything in there

[jaunty harness]

OH wild, it just stops at Save /prefs/device.proto ? Have you tried a CONFIG BACKUP FIRST, then flash nuke of the LFS?

[exotic merlin]

I don’t know what’s CONFIG BACKUP FIRST is. How do I trigger such a thing

my attempted factory reset failed https://gist.github.com/morria/a75495ef24c444c816198262b3adfda9

oh, notably it wasn’t hosed immediately after flashing. I was configuring it and after saving some setting it rebooted and never came back

[jaunty harness]

meshtastic --export-config > g2.yaml

[exotic merlin]

Let’s see if it’s able

nope; it’s not WARNING file:stream_interface.py __reader line:207 Meshtastic serial port disconnected, disconnecting... read failed: [Errno 6] Device not configured

[jaunty harness]

this just seems like something else is using the serial connection/port, or the device is so funky it won't respond to serial

[exotic merlin]

I was able to flash it a 2nd time but had the same thing

[jaunty harness]

main thing with backing up your cfg is a> the privateKey and b> all the other settings but really A - but if it's that hosed that not responding to serial commands , nuke may be only option

[exotic merlin]

oh yeah, I have my keys stored

doing an erase flash now

[jaunty harness]

EXCELLENT! Gold star for you

[exotic merlin]

I was assuming that any install of 2.6 would automatically erase. Is that not the case? Do I have to re-flash my devices that I didn’t do an erase flash on?

boom; it lives!

[abstract iron]

awesome I heard you out in central pa

[jaunty harness]

I'm not 100%, my DIY builds I did nuke + update as have some scripts to automate backup/restore and wrap the "sensitive" bits so I can store in public git. When I upgraded 2.5 -> 2.6 on femtofox it blew away cfg and nodeDB so I think it is supposedly to blew away the old protobuffs but may not be working 100% right on 100% of the supported hw?

[exotic merlin]

or, it mostly lives? Not letting me connect but the screen is up and it’s running meshtastic

[jaunty harness]

forget the BT pairing on your phone/computer

[exotic merlin]

oh right!

Thank you porkcube

[jaunty harness]

noooo problem man! i've fought many a misbehaving node, never quite the same thing twice but generall it's like any computer problem: figure out hw or sw issue, drill down until you find the smoking gun

and its def confusing if you haven't spent a lot of time looking at the logs to know that uiconfig.proto is just normal despite it being scary red text

[daring moth]

That isn't a NYC-specific question. Maybe ask in #help?

[exotic merlin]

😬 It happened again

[glossy pine]

Everything is welcome

[daring moth]

True, but then you're only getting answers from people that happen to live in or around NYC. #help would put the question in front of more eyes.

[jaunty harness]

#solar-power probably has some solutions as well as they’re often mounted on a pole. I know there’s a starlink roof mount some people have used in there

[daring moth]

Déjà vu?

[glossy pine]

Amazing sun rn, charge solar nodes charge!!

This solar shit real easy to fall behind after a couple overcast days

[jaunty harness]

time for bigger batteries!

[rare sparrow]

20000 mAh!

[jaunty harness]

LOL I think that's like the sum total capacity of my battery box

[daring moth]

https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1361056009061142528

[daring moth]

Looking at Google Maps Satellite and Street View, there's already a telecommunications mast/tower near the highest elevation in the general area, at these coordinates: 40.765708,-73.701954
I'm guessing it'd be too expensive to install a node there.

[jaunty harness]

Probably depends on who owns / operates the tower? Looks like it’d hit electchester when that goes up

[twin root]

Anyone hear our nodes? Was transmitting from a drone in Courtlandt NY today and hit a lot of stuff in NYC and Broomlyn

It was 9a0d

It was not TXing location but you may have hit it.

[jaunty harness]

not in the femtofox's nodedb sadly

[thin rivet]

lol I just made the chat too so good timing

[daring moth]

Yep, I noticed it and wanted to share it with the folks in #1202833898376138752.

[karmic junco]

Without my base stations I've seen nobody for weeks

I used to be reliably able to see at least my own base stations which then would be able to reach further with their big sntennas

[midnight mural]

Picked up my t1000-e card today. SoCal mesh is bumping with nodes 😎

Probably going to switch Casey Jones to Client Mute, and keep the relay for a car node/whatever.

Updated to 2.6.4 beta stable tonight.

[jaunty harness]

oh yeah, it's like san diego to santa barbara from some of what i've seen

[midnight mural]

Looks all the way to Mexico, it’s pretty neat

Last one, there are 7 of these that make me lol.

Anyway, it’s neat to see people using this in other places and you can just get right in

[thin rivet]

Thanks man I appreciate it

[abstract iron]

Ok I'm in rural pa with almost no chan util.. The donk 1 watt Alfa 915 on a pole gets out to some unknown nodes to mesh out... but doesn't Rx as well

the WinMesh with a big AliExpress RX much better

any better config to be on than donk client WinMesh client client mute?

I can't put them both on CLIENT or they ping pong each other

i.e. I think the donk tx me out but doesn't know it and the WinMesh is how I hear the responses

[daring moth]

Maybe set them to ignore each other in the node DB? Then, at least they won't ping-pong their own telemetry, etc.

[abstract iron]

it would be great if I could get the WinMesh to repeat out what it's hearing but not try to handle the donk traffic out

[jaunty harness]

hrmm i wonder if what's actually happening is the wismesh isn't RXing better than the Donk but actually worse enough so it has a shorter retransmission window, and thus TXs before the Donk does which would suppress the Donk TX (since it's heard the retransmission) - or .. maybe I'm just not caffeinated enough and not parsing that correctly

[abstract iron]

is there a way to try to eyeball this? like just look at nodes discovered, or, try to compare a traceroute to what I see in nodedb

[jaunty harness]

hrmm, if you had serial console / logs on both you should be able to see the packet IDs and timestamps - other than that... my brain isn't braining enough to brain something up

yeah only other thing that's coming to mind right now is way crazier with the gnuradio meshtastic python scripts + SDR to decode / inspect packets - i'm sure there's some way but i don't got much right now

[abstract iron]

yeah I can do that, more easily on the WinMesh (in a window)

the serial logs

I think the ignore donk on WinMesh might work?? but then I still can't put WinMesh on client or it will try to handle the t1es floating around

[jaunty harness]

just set them all to REPEATER 😆

[glossy pine]

is there a way to have your messages not use an individual node in the mesh?

[bronze wren]

wdym by using a node? DM recipient or sender Id? Or routing concerns?

[glossy pine]

Yah I just don’t want to route via a particular one

[abstract iron]

took the donk down to charge and put the WinMesh up

let's compare...

[daring moth]

I guess you could try changing the frequency slot of every node except for that one to be a non-default frequency slot?

[glossy pine]

Oof. Could do. It’s a repeater that seems to be grabbing my stuff and sending it mostly nowhere

[daring moth]

You could try deploying an additional node with the ROUTER_LATE role to a location reachable from both your node and some other node, such that this other node is out of range of the repeater node you're trying to bypass.

[daring moth]

This wouldn't bypass the repeater node, per se. However, it should theoretically enable your messages to reach out to the wider Meshtastic network, irrespective of what the repeater node rebroadcasts.

[bronze wren]

Best argument for router late I've seen.

it'd be useful to have a configurable list of broken nodes but I think it'd be a recipe for a mess if used widely.

We need to make repeater and router settings harder to pick out of the box.

[jaunty harness]

they added some text to iOS for ROUTER and ROUTER_LATE recently but it didn't seem to trigger for REPEATER or ROUTER_CLIENT (the latter has been just a cosmetic ROUTER that's actually a CLIENT since somewhere in 2.4 IIRC)

there was a proposal to gate the infra roles behind functioning RF Admin setup, proving both familiarity/proficiency with Meshtastic and ability to access it and change to something like CLIENT but not sure where that ended up

i also kinda worry say harlem relay wakes up one day, decides to update but finds all these gates and just stays on ancient firmware and never looks at it again (actually less worried about harlem relay than oopso and brooklyn solar node ROUTER_CLIENTs which went up in Jan on pre 2.5 firmware and kill our CLIENTs full potential)

[midnight mural]

I saw, didn’t save the message, that one node caught the earthquake from San Diego this morning. That was neat, but I didn’t feel it 😦

[glossy pine]

When people say 50/50 chance they usually mean “I am making this up”

[jaunty harness]

50/50 change you just made that up!

[daring moth]

Are you referring to the fact that they mentioned "50/50" within that statement? Thus, that statement has a 50/50 chance of being a paradox.

[karmic junco]

Morning folks!

[rare sparrow]

Morning

🙌

[karmic junco]

I see nobody! So sad

Such a dead zone at sea level

[normal osprey]

ack 😂

[daring moth]

Have you looked at #1361056009061142528?

[abstract iron]

I'm trying the donk on router_late and the WinMesh on client. Then I use both via T1Es. Nobody here to interfere with

the donk and WinMesh are in different locations

donk is up on a flagpole... next up is suspending it up into a tree

[karmic junco]

I have not

Generally, most people from LI leave out most of the northshore

At least the pt Washington area

I get hits when I leave my area but I'm like 8-13 feet above sea level

So getting ground level hits is rough

I get .02 airch utilization.

[karmic junco]

I'll go for a walk later see if I get snyone

[jaunty harness]

Direct Hit to 4f11!

[karmic junco]

But who is thet

That

[daring moth]

🤷

[jaunty harness]

someone on/near roosevelt island apparently... I'd guess 🍕 but he's in SoCal

I think the Mesh-Guy.net node is around there ?

[tame brook]

Well I just got my device and it’s on! Now to see if it works!

[tame brook]

I went for a walk and found another node this is too exciting! This is like 1996 and I’m on IRC for the first time!

[midnight mural]

Yup, deep in the SoCalMesh….missing pizza from home, but surviving on tacos. 😎

Opinions wanted on a home node. I want it powerful and a raspi hat…..wanting to use the Meshtastic web client docker image or other software I can connect to while away from nyc.

Am I crazy, I’ve seen some hats, but haven’t looked at many specs….any thoughts?

[jaunty harness]

if you have a raspi + hat meshtasticd can run the webUI, no extra shenanigans like docker needed

Mesh-Adv / Rabbit Labs both have 1W hats, there's also the Femtofox which is 1W Hat that also happens to have a Linux SBC onboard (check #1174474453359526050) but it's pokier than the 10+ year old RaspiB+ limited largely by 64MB of RAM and slow SD card IO but totally useable all the same, it's what's currently in my window!

Def stay away from the Waveshare LoRa hat, not 1W and lots of people have problems with its XTAL (aka non-TCXO) Radio

[karmic junco]

Stop efnetting yourself

[jaunty harness]

slaps PX with a large trout

[karmic junco]

@_@

Ahh. The good old days

Heck meshtastic is kinda like that

[bronze wren]

default mIRC reactions lol. Maybe that's what meshtastic is missing.

[jaunty harness]

that's the 🔔 !

[midnight mural]

I saw stay away from that, I kinda figured you’re running a femtofox.

A hat and straight up MeshtasticD sounds awesome, I saw the MeshAdv Pi Hat v1.1 Fully Assembled on Etsy and was like this is something of interest to me.

Thanks for those opinions @jaunty harness

[thin rivet]

Hey i aked #help too, but I got a really stupid question, does anyone know how to make a good node on like ground level to help cover a decent area to extend coverage to my area? I live in an HOA thats why

thats why its oddly specific

[exotic merlin]

When nodes fail to pass packets along or hit max retries they send out a ROUTING_APP packet to announce the error.

It’s wild that conditions could fluctuate enough or packet length could be influential enough to make it so the original message can’t get to my node but the ROUTING message can be received just fine.

Oh or I guess my rx is stronger than my tx.

[rare sparrow]

Stealth node time 😎

[thin rivet]

FR

My brain aint braining, how can I help a large area get meshtastic service in a restrictive HOA

LI is a desert for signal

I at least want to try

[exotic merlin]

Got any tall trees? 915mhz is attenuated a bit my foliage but it doesn’t totally block it. A solar panel could potentially be tough to see from the street.

[thin rivet]

yeah but im not a tree climber

[exotic merlin]

Could do an occasional drone flight to get a radio high up.

[thin rivet]

fair, but i dont own a drone

[jaunty harness]

I can't remember if it's in #antennas or #solar-power (likely, both) but people have tossed things up over a tree limb to hoist their nodes up into the trees

height will by far do the most for increasing your coverage

like 1W radios are fun and all, but reality is it's mostly just shouting even louder at a steel and concrete wall that eats it up same as always

[jaunty harness]

I actually have a 3B w/Screen on my desk as well at the moment with the same femtofox pcb/1W radio combo but without the luckfox pico mini. Built MAX_POWER 8 last night for a buddy which kinda the ultimate 1W as works standalone with promicro (he'd feed it directly over USB from Voltaic pack so easiest way to get 5V for the E22900M33S is tap the USB connector), or remove the promicro and run it as a pihat and gets 5V from the raspi.

[midnight mural]

Yeah, I am going to be freeing up a pi3b from ADS-B testing, and would like to test some sort of pi hat for my home node 😎I have a great TMNT themed name for it lol

I also like your screen. I’ve always wanted one, but I usually use the closest web browser instead and can’t really get myself to actually buy one…even with the touch screen!

[jaunty harness]

the screen is actually one i've had lying around for a while waiting for a project... and I actually leave it powered off most of the time but it has a handy button to turn on/off when it's time to play with it. it's capacitive touch though, so klunky but still neat and finally has a home (unexpected bonus is it has an onboard usb-c power input can its hdmi and could be used in other ways, but it can also power the pi and i have a gazillionty usb-c cables everywhere)

[proven grove]

FYI: the Liberty and the Femtofox can both be used as HATs, and they too have 1W radios.

[jaunty harness]

Someone sells prebuilt Libertys?

[proven grove]

Ew no. lol nobody wants a Liberty. Liberty's are for those that NEED a board like that, that will take their "oops, why'd I order this radio, I have nothing to put it on", and make them into something useful.

I've got a surplus of alpha releases of it (I tend to be Toms crash test dummy), where everything works fine, but he flipped SCL / SDA on the Pi headers.

Also, speaking of 1W nodes, this bad boy is finally making its way up to the attic.

[jaunty harness]

not waiting for foxbuntu 1.0?

[proven grove]

What fixes have been released in the last 3 weeks? 1.0 has been out for a while, or at least I thought it was GM when I built it.

[jaunty harness]

🤷

i've been busy with work but it's still not official, but i'm also still on 0.99

[proven grove]

Meh... they need better versioning to indicate what build someone's running. Because 1.0 has been out for over a month lol

I've had like 4 different versions of 1.0

[jaunty harness]

LOL

as long as you got meshtasticd the rest... doesn't really matter

OH!!! I started an awesome list of DIY nodes - you sir, you can help me 8)

I need to go through and add better descriptions but figure you're likely to have some i'm missing

or well actually i need to go to sleep, but yeah any you know of please send me links 8)

[proven grove]

For clarity's sake, may want to group them by designer

Also, Babelfox, and Vardas' faketec, fulltec (e80), and some other ones he did, i need to find the links, but i need sleep more.

[jaunty harness]

no rush, and yeah it needs some work but work and... rather soldering than type when not work 8p

[proven grove]

Judgment free zone lol. I'm in the same boat. I still have 3 boards that are 80% designed... but yet to be finished and printed.

[brazen spear]

I'd love to get a few ppl from here trained on how to deploy at nycmesh locations.

I gave the olmstead node to an nycmesh volunteer. He's open to bringing someone along to show them the ropes.

Dm me if you'd be interested in this.

[thin rivet]

If anyone is on this server from the Suffolk/Nassau area and wants to help expand coverage there, please help us out! there are three of us brainstorming but the chat name is #1361056009061142528 , just wanted to remind people on here once more if anyone missed the message from a day or two ago mentioning the creation of the gc. It was only made like 3ish days ago by me

I hope one day we can bridge the gap from Suffolk to NYC in nodes

Queens would also be appriciated to participate

[daring moth]

Especially since the eastern half of Queens has limited Meshtastic adoption too.

[thin rivet]

Ill edit the GC name to add Queens

Ok edited

#1361056009061142528

its crazy to me that rural Connecticut has more nodes then the dense counties of Nassau and Suffolk

at least central/west Suffok is dense

[daring moth]

I wonder if Meshtastic adoption is at all correlated with the number of makerspaces/hackerspaces in the area:

[thin rivet]

What’s a hackerspace?

[daring moth]

Read the description on #1300525496945348648's website.

https://hackmanhattan.com/

[thin rivet]

Ooo that does look interesting

[daring moth]

According to the map, there's one in Nassau/Suffolk, three across the Long Island sound, and nine around the NYC area, likely including parts of New Jersey.

[brazen spear]

We have a plan to install a good node on the roof of electchester which should make such a connection feasable.

They're currently finishing up work on the roof so we're just being patient.

[thin rivet]

Yes but I want to push as far east as I can, I want to be sure coverage at least where I live (northern coast Suffolk) to build a simple node so that people south of me who are far from Bridgeport CT can get some access

I feel bad for people far east like Riverhead-Montauk/Orient

Like if you’re into Meshtastic and live there you’re kind of screwed if you want far communication

I’m planning on putting a solar node in my car because I live in an HOA and glass doesn’t really insulate too much radio

[brazen spear]

Electchester should reach pretty far out into the island. I imagine a 15 mile connection should be very doable, perhaps much further if a node uses a yagi to connect directly with it.

[thin rivet]

Yeah I mean further than that like look up Ronkonkama/Port Jeff (if you don’t know where that is)

15 miles is like 1/4th the way there

If I could put a big satellite on my roof I would but unfortunately I live in Meshtastic’s worst nightmare, an HOA neighborhood

[brazen spear]

Start the search for good roofs along the way. It'll make the connection hop by hop.

[thin rivet]

What I’m gonna do is probably install a node on the dashboard of my car that gets super sunny

So it has enough solar power, even in winter to last

[brazen spear]

Look on Google earth for potential good roofs like 15-20 miles from electchester, then make friends 🙂

[thin rivet]

Yeah but Bridgeport isn’t too far from me actually

It’s just across the sound

My town is less than 20 miles from Bridgeport, AND there is nothing blocking it like hills

It’s just water

[brazen spear]

Get yourself a yagi. They look like an old school tv antenna.

[glossy pine]

Put up a small kite that’s high enough to catch the permanent prevailing winds holding a small solar node, the range would be spectacular

[glossy pine]

What’s folks opinions on leaving solar nodes out over the winter. I know cold can cause performance issues for Lithium ion batteries, possibly damaging them permanently. Should the mesh take a hit in Dec - Feb?

[jaunty harness]

LTO is like -30C, LiFeP04 is like -20C, LiOn is like -10C and LiPo ~0C (from memory, but aproximately that) - thing is even if it's 0C outside the inside of an enclosure running a node is likely still above that temp. There's also some charge rate considerations but with a non-1W nRF or ESP32 it should be welllllllll below the threshold to worry about unless it's a really small battery.

i know gardener used 18650s LiOns in his deploys and those seemed to have no probs over winter. you can also get fancy and used temperature controlled cut-off fuses so the battery won't charge/discharge say below 0C or above 50C (because summer is just a different version of the same temperature problems)

[thin rivet]

Guys does anyone have the budget for a few satellites? Any billionaires in the chat?

[glossy pine]

The kite idea would actually work, I’d do it in a heartbeat but can’t inside nyc

[daring moth]

Valley as in Hudson Valley (from #general)

[inner helm]

Hello I live in Westchester surrounded by mountains in the Hudson valley

Someone climbed to the top of bear mountain and maybe had a drone or a kite.

It connected me to someone whose location is southern Brooklyn 47 miles away

[proven grove]

In actual Westchester, They're more like hills... I live on top of one lol.
up by bear mtn, they're mountains.

[inner helm]

Over the weekend someone with a drone in my area connected me to a lot of people in the mesh here.

I know you alien. Connected many times

I’m Hudson hawk

[proven grove]

AH welcome

[inner helm]

I go to Budha Asian bistro and back yard Cajun seafood boil and connect to yall.

[proven grove]

@jaunty harness is in Westchester too, but opposite side of the county. (I think)

[proven grove]

Yep, Wish there were more of us around here. But my mini-mesh is 20 nodes stong, but they're all inside my house on CLIENT_MUTE

[jaunty harness]

what? LOL no I haven't lived in Westchester since 2001, just grew up there

[inner helm]

I was all envious of your mesh but it turns out it’s someone like me with four nodes.

[amber edge]

any volunteeres for summitting the tappan zee

[inner helm]

I’m in your zone sometimes but I never catch you for a chat

I could ask my old college roommate Kathy hochul about it.

We were just texting each other about today’s wordle

Whoever was on beat mountain half an hour ago could link the NYC mesh to most of the Hudson valley.

I’m trying to find out if they were just a hiker or someone with a drone.

[proven grove]

https://tenor.com/view/learn-something-new-everyday-pete-davidson-saturday-night-live-didnt-know-that-huh-gif-25916123

[jaunty harness]

didn't hear them on my window node but have had node or 2 show up from the group up near albany as well as the North PA and Central/North CT meshes

(7 hops)

[inner helm]

Here’s whom connected to.

One is in Lower Manhattan one is in downtown Brooklyn

[jaunty harness]

oh nice N1UGK is in here, they're over in NJ. Tactical Satellite Node is worth ignoring as they spam ATAK and run high hops... and located in the middle of the water

[inner helm]

What’s wrong with high hops?

Network congestion?

Does the new routing in 2.6 fix this?

[amber edge]

how are they located in the water?

[jaunty harness]

yeah and over-propagation - like they run 7 hops in rural areas to get around terrain but it only takes one decent mesh path and it'll travel over 75miles to us here

[inner helm]

I can’t connect to anyone where I am

I hit people when I travel

[jaunty harness]

either they manually set their coordinates or increased the "loss" for precise location

[amber edge]

gotcha so it's not accurate

[inner helm]

As best I can tell we connected to Jersey and they connected to a node in southern Manhattan and they connected to a node in southern Brooklyn.

[midnight mural]

I can’t wait to get to the mountains this summer upstate….for this exact reason

[twin root]

Increases network traffic by n^4th for everybody, not just that person's messages.

[twin root]

Yeah, my buddy who lives in Cortland New York hit The New York City nodes today

We also hit the last week, I went to his house and we flew a drone with a node on it up, bridged a large part, but not as good as a spot as bear mntn

[brazen spear]

So who's going to put up a solar node on top of bear mountain?

[twin root]

Yeah for real

Make it look like a birdhouse

No one would ever fuck with it

[midnight mural]

You gotta hide it, there are tons of people in Harriman

[tame brook]

So far the only node I’ve connected with is my husband’s, which is in the same location. Going to try farther afield tomorrow.

[inner helm]

What do you consider upstate?

@twin root how far did yall connect to today? My Jose was in a drawer so I might not have gotten all the messages.

[misty gorge]

I see 2.6.x is stable now. Can someone give me the overview of what's changed since 2.5? And what advantages there are from for a roof top node? Still got that node running 2.1x which I haven't upgraded but is running like a champ still.

[rare sparrow]

https://meshtastic.org/blog/meshtastic-2-6-preview/

Their blog explained it pretty well

next hop routing

[midnight mural]

Not NYC/LI basically….you know, upstate 😉

I want to spend time with nodes in the cats and adk mtns

[thin rivet]

Finally got my Meshtastic device, no signal lol

I’m in a bad area

Suffolk County is really underdeveloped for Meshtastic I guess

[misty gorge]

I'll have to check it out. I just want to put a firmware up there that I can leave alone for another 2 years. Haha

[misty gorge]

Get a unit up higher!

[thin rivet]

Mf I’m surrounded by 2 story houses lol

Not much height

[misty gorge]

Sounds like you need a 5 story mast.

[thin rivet]

Can one of yall become a billionaire we need satellites lol

[misty gorge]

Elon already provides satellite coverage to cell phones.

[thin rivet]

Yes but this is cooler

[misty gorge]

Get some friends in the area interested. Or just convince them to allow you to install stuff on their roofs.

[jaunty harness]

its good you waited until it was warmer to do the upgrades because 2.6 will wipe/erase 2.5 😄

[radiant cairn]

Maybe soon.. there’s LoRa telemetry up there already, next step is Meshtastic

https://hackaday.com/2022/07/07/diy-low-cost-lora-satellite-ground-station/

[thin rivet]

NICE

[daring moth]

Did you intentionally capitalize that message so I could make this joke?
https://nicebus.com/

[thin rivet]

lol no never heard of nice bus

[midnight mural]

I have been having these thoughts that if people were putting up stealth nodes, the short name for all of them should be a 👻, default long name.

Who you gonna call?

Because if I had a lot of disposable income, I’d be doing just that lol

[jaunty harness]

heh there used to be someone on the mesh and looks like still in here but inactive who goes by Ghost and used that emoji on their node

[karmic junco]

In the hood you toss a pair of sneakers with a small solar panel on the top side?

[karmic junco]

Ground level is very difficult

[karmic junco]

Your flat

Long Island is flat as fuck heck so is nyc

The highest elevations are man made or the Bronx.

The ideal solution, is actually a mag mounted base and then flying and dropping a solar unit on a water tower.

But unless the world was farked, this is probably very illegal

If you want to get the govt on your ass real fast drop one on the old radar tower at riverhead

[jaunty harness]

just leave it default settings so it doesn't tie back to you 8)

[midnight mural]

That’s probably where the idea came from!

@jaunty harness so I took your advice, installed meshtasticd on my raspi5 I brought, and boom, I have my own web client. Plugged in my T1000-E, via usb, boom, connected.

I assume that I can then use a MeshAdv Pi Hat and use the localhost web client from there?

Nevermind, I forgot about this:

https://github.com/chrismyers2000/MeshAdv-Pi-Hat

[sonic prism]

CHTM is a pi with the frequency labs hat. Works pretty well. I ssh in from time to time and use the command line app “contact” to send messages from it when testing

But sadly still in a valley here and no route around the surrounding hills yet. Need an opportune placed mobile node, plane or weird atmospherics to see the NYC contingent

[karmic junco]

Heck I can't even see the next town east.

[twin root]

I don't live up there I'm in NYC metro, but my buddy who does said he got from courland to NYC and was able to get traves to major nodes

[inner helm]

Fern this is Hudson hawk/car node. We linked over the weekend. I’m near the Peekskill train station.

[twin root]

Yeah I remember! My buddy @placid olive is the one who is up there

Flying that drone up there was great.... Really beautiful area. Has never been up there before

[placid olive]

Thanks for the reminder to update my server username with my node short names.

[inner helm]

Hudson hawk and gull are likely allies

[whole basalt]

Just got a Rak board and was thinking about putting the environment module on it. However, I plan on putting it out side in a watertight case. That might heat up and make the readings invalid. Also, how does the Rak module broadcast the temp, etc. Any thoughts appreciated.

[jaunty harness]

Nice! The environmental metrics are sent like the power metrics, which is ~60s to app and ... I'd have to check the code but believe it's every 60mins for RF, and it'll try 3 times to send to the mesh incrementing a timer each attempt and then just give up after the 3rd try if it sees > 25% utilization prioritizing the mesh over reporting metrics.

How much it heats up inside the enclosure is kinda hard to say exactly as depends on how hot enclosure gets from ambient temp, the sun beating down on it and how much heat the node/battery are creating. Generally as long as you get it as far from the heat generating bits and it's not in direct sun it should be fairly accurate

[thin rivet]

Got my radio working, unfortunately I need to use wifi in my town

but im planning on building a node on a second floor window

[whole basalt]

Thanks for the help. I will probably get the module - cheap enough even if it doesn't work as hoped. I also need to look for a small solar panel now as well.

[jaunty harness]

The 6W Soshine is a pretty popular cheap option

[thin rivet]

Hey I accidentally slid in the DMs of all of NY state

But I know this works now!

One 7 hop message later 💀

So to anyone who received my message, I’m sorry

I just got this thing yesterday, my apologies

To whomever E97C is, thanks for letting me know

[tame brook]

I’m jealous! I haven’t had one successful message besides my husband.

[thin rivet]

Yeah but I’m using the Internet too, not just radio frequencies

[midnight mural]

I might hit 500 nodes seen in SoCal before I leave. Crazy shit

[midnight mural]

I wonder how many are on planes? I wonder if you can somehow search for low number of connections or something and delete them. I’ve messed with zero cli sans installing meshtasticd yesterday

[jaunty harness]

meshtastic firmware and meshtasticd both are essentially the same as far as the code / logic, so autocycle out nodes based off the "last seen" time - but unlike firmware meshtasticd you can craaaaaank up MAX_NODES though they did bump the limit on ESP32s w/>=8MB flash be a 250nodes limit (poor nRFs still 80)

[jaunty harness]

part of the full meshtastic experience is using discord to talk about how RF is/isn't working 😄

[thin rivet]

IKRRRR

You get it

Shoutout to anyone got my mass message

[thin rivet]

imma be honest idk what to use my client for

I got it because it was cool but idk if I should send out a message to talk to other fellow nerds or its exclusively an emergency radio thing

[jaunty harness]

it is whatever you want to do with it, it's your hardware ! even just leaving up a client helps the mesh for the next person that fires up a fresh node and sees someone else out there

[thin rivet]

Yeah but at the same time I don’t know the etiquette of Mesh chats

It’s kind of like I don’t know the unwritten rules

Like ofc don’t be a jerk, but what do people expect? Will I annoy anyone? Etc

Also for example Suffolk County chats and any more local then that are dead

So I’d need to either send messages to NYC or the whole state

There are north shore chats and one for my town (idk why there is one for my town) but they have nobody

[jaunty harness]

enh, some meshes with spamners - in general.. just kinda general rule of don't be a jerk

several people, myself included, don't run mqtt so if you're relying on that many of us won't hear the messages

[thin rivet]

Well yeah Suffolk county is virtually dead

when it comes to Meshtastic

If I were in the city, yeah it would be awesome, but out here no

[jaunty harness]

2 years ago i got my first node... and 2 weeks later my second because i never heard anything/anyone on the first

[tame brook]

Well you’re starting something. “If you build it they will come” ya know?

[jaunty harness]

eventually took em down and sat on the shelf for a while and then one day dusted it off and hey it's poppin' now

[daring moth]

What kind of antenna are you using?

[thin rivet]

I bought mine pre made, it has a very small antenna

I wanted something I can carry around with me so the antenna is in the device

[daring moth]

Which device?

[thin rivet]

Heltec V3, but everything is encased in a 3D printed case

[daring moth]

Unless the person/company you bought it from put a different antenna on it, the Heltec V3 comes with a really low quality antenna.

[thin rivet]

Yeah then it’s that if it’s super short

Yeah it is the default antenna

[daring moth]

I've installed https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-916-PML-UFL/5592354 onto my T-Deck Plus. The main downside is that the pigtail is quite long at 12 inches, so it's difficult to stuff into tiny cases. Otherwise, the brand is well-known in the Meshtastic community for making good quality antennas.

[daring moth]

I'm curious, how's the battery life? I've heard that the Heltec V3 (and other nodes using the ESP32 family of MCUs) have terrible battery life.

[jaunty harness]

oh yeah you def wanna upgrade that antenna, i have the non bendy version of that antenna and it's def decent. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/taoglas-limited/TI-09-A-0111/2332695 is another i've had running for a while and happy with for the price (and slightly better/lower SWR than the TE Linx)

[glossy pine]

I have one. The battery will be ok then suddenly drop off after it gets below 50% unexpectedly

It’s good for a day or so of bike riding but I would want to have an external power to charge it with me for longer

With the long antenna tx rx is decent

[jaunty harness]

LiPo? it's the same w/nRF theres just the cliff where you go steady down to 35-50% and then suddenly it 10%

also client vs client_mute, latter saves a lot battery by not doing any retransmission

[glossy pine]

Yeah I started putting it on client mute for exactly that reason and it helped a lot. The drop off you mentioned is real af

All this said it’s great for my use case

[midnight mural]

I mean, I have late night pizza parties all the time on the mesh, ninja turtle style.

[glossy pine]

Who cares just try welcome

[midnight mural]

Hmmmm, that might mean I need to swap the roles of Pizza Delivery Dude and Casey Jones around. If I am using my T1000-E and Casey Jones, late night pizza parties might be awkward

[glossy pine]

Turtle power

[midnight mural]

But you know, in TMNT2, everyone was eating pizza in the beginning, LIKE EVERYONE, so I guess anyone can have late night pizza parties.

Hot slices in your area 😂🤣

[glossy pine]

Casey Jones was in that sewer the whole time they were in medieval Japan who else would deliver there but the pizza place that knew their sewer grate already

[midnight mural]

TMNT3 is on my to do list on my flight back to the pizza belt, still brushing up on my live action TMNT movies

[midnight mural]

@glossy pine can’t you fly a kite at Coney Island? Enough wind there to get a node up for an afternoon? Give TAK a friend LOL

[glossy pine]

a kite in the park yes!

i should

[midnight mural]

Sense cap on a kite, EZPZ

[tough acorn]

The lower Lillygo board is running TinyGS while the upper Heltec is running Meshtastic. I get several box sat downloads a week on the Lillygo from my third floor window above Flatbush Ave. and four inch rubber duck antenna.

[rare sparrow]

Flatbush and Myrtle! Used to be there everyday

[thin rivet]

So simple yet so cool

[rare sparrow]

Mine is basically the same

Just board and antenna taped to the window 😂

[tough acorn]

Scotch tape, the building block of champions...

[daring moth]

I was thinking of using these instead, though they're from the same company: https://www.command.com/3M/en_US/p/d/cbgnawus2253/

[rare sparrow]

maybe a roll of this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFZQ319B

[tough acorn]

That would hold better than scotch tape but I have not had any adhesion failures yet...

[thin rivet]

When I get my node in the mail I’m probably gonna do something similar

Damn I hate autocorrect

[daring moth]

IMO, that's too permanent, assuming they're renting.

[thin rivet]

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

If scotch works then I don’t see an issue

Also I just bought a T Deck Plus with external antenna

Given that it can do multiple things it’s a reasonable price

[daring moth]

I was referring to the Scotch-Mount product when advising against renters using it. Not the Scotch Magic Tape that @rare sparrow was likely using.

[thin rivet]

OHHH mb

[rare sparrow]

hmm it says removable

[thin rivet]

Out of curiosity what is TinyGS?

[tough acorn]

I got a few dozen toys coming from Ali over the next week in a final attempt at not making America great again, by not paying 124% tariff....

[thin rivet]

Exactly, like the T Deck Plus I bought was $80, I don’t want to pay $200

[tough acorn]

TinyGS, Tiny Ground Station, to copy the little box satellites launched mostly by universities. In the 400 MHz low power segment.

[thin rivet]

So basically a repeater?

[tough acorn]

It just receives the telemetry data from the birds. The amazing thing is I have almost no view of the sky above Flatbush Ave.

[tough acorn]

I also have a T Deck Plus coming in within a few days along with a few solar nodes.

[thin rivet]

Does the T deck plus have its own battery? I’m planning on using it as a client not a node

Nvm just checked it does

[tough acorn]

Its got a nice little battery, keyboard and display. I am not using it as a node....

$85 from Amazon.

[tame brook]

I just got my first message! Someone in northern Jersey 18 miles away!

[whole basalt]

What antenna are you using for TinyGS. Looks like a fun thing. Board is reasonable on Amazon.

[jaunty harness]

i think it's just anything tuned for ~433MHz? maybe misremembering but think that's what tinygs uses for RF

[thin rivet]

What’s your root?

Mine currently is NY/NYC

because Suffolk and north shore are dead

I tried messaging a node that’s only miles away from me but I got no response

[jaunty harness]

did you get an acknowledge from another node (e.g. a cloud or a check, depends on the app/os) but no response?

[thin rivet]

Yes it got acknowledged but the dm deleted because I disconnected by accident, I’ll message again once it accepts dms again

It’s 3 hops away from me

I rely off of internet, until minimum the node helps or I get my Tdeck

[tough acorn]

Its a helical rubber antenna that came with the board, about four inches long. Amazing performance from an indoor rig....

Make sure to get a UHF board for TinyGS since it is around 430MHZ. There is a list of supported boards on their site.

[thin rivet]

If anyone already owns a T Deck Plus, what radio antenna do you guys use and how far of coverage do you get? I want something as powerful (and legal) as can be but not a huge antenna, like something I could travel with

https://a.co/d/fNWrfO8

I saw this I thought it looked good but you guys would know better than me

[daring moth]

Did you get the version with the SMA connector? Or is the antenna integrated into the enclosure?

[thin rivet]

With the external socket

Not the internal one

[daring moth]

https://lilygo.cc/cdn/shop/files/LILYGO-T-DECK-PLUS_5.jpg?v=1736321363

Like that?

[thin rivet]

Yes that

[daring moth]

Unless you're okay with aiming the antenna upright all the time, I wouldn't recommend getting a high-gain antenna.

[thin rivet]

I’m ok with buying 2 antennas if need be

I’d rather have interchangeable antennas then be stuck with one because it’s in the enclosure

That’s why I bought one with the external socket

[jaunty harness]

just be aware swapping antennas while powered up can damage the radio chip (very unlikely at the normal power levels, but still possible and easily avoided)

[thin rivet]

Ok good to know thank you

[jaunty harness]

I have a little Gizont stubby on my (non-plus) T-Deck which works good but also not trying to get crazy range out of it

[thin rivet]

I think changing anything on electronics while something is on is a risk so it makes sense

[thin rivet]

Have any idea on the range of it? I want something with a lot of range if possible

Like I want as far as I could get so I can get as close to the city as I can (even if it’s only 1% of the way there and that’s the only length possible, I’ll take it)

If you guys need a reference point where I am, I’m about 55ish miles away from manhattan

[jaunty harness]

range is relative... same antenna in wide open / clear LOS will perform magnitudes better than from street level in midtown

if you want guaranteed distance you probably want a directional pointed at something else, otherwise as shown above your radiation pattern is a big ol' donut

so it's extended your donut reliably to another node's donut, ideally one up nice and high and has overlapping donut with another and thus you get stuff in/out of the mesh

[daring moth]

I'd recommend getting both the https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-915-NUB-SMA/16123689 for when you want it to fit in your pocket, and https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-916-OC-LG-SMA/2651619 for when you're actively using it. I have not tried these exact models myself, but other antennas from that brand are generally recommended by the Meshtastic community. Also, make sure to have transmit disabled in the configuration whenever removing the antenna.

[rare sparrow]

that is so tiny

[midnight mural]

Most things don’t operate like that anymore; most of it is hot swap/plug

[tough acorn]

The one I got coming in from Amazon has an internal antenna put has a cut-out on top for adding an SMA connector to put an external antenna on. Those 5db gain antenna are 2 for $10 on amazon and look pretty good on my vector network analyzer.

[abstract iron]

ayo NYC mesh I'm back. was on kids' spring break for a week in rural pa. lots of mesh out there on big towers

but big distances to cover to get to one..10-15+ me

miless

[jaunty harness]

heh which was more reliable for those distances the Donk or Wismesh?

[abstract iron]

well I had them in two locations. donk better for TX distance. couldn't get out with winmesh

in either location

but leaving the WinMesh on client and the donk on router late seemed to give me the most visibility

of nodes around me

but the donk was, from what I can tell, the one getting our nodes out

then I had various t1es floating around

[jaunty harness]

awesome, i mean it's what i'd expect but also good to have more real world validation in (not NYC)

[abstract iron]

I didn't have time to pull the serial logs but the WinMesh did seem to receive more nodes, either because the location was better, or something else

but putting the donk where the WinMesh was didn't get me tx out and I didn't have a lot of time to a/b

6 hops around there got me seeing nodeinfo from near Lancaster Pa to all east and south into Philly burbs

next time I'm back there I'll try more combos

[midnight mural]

I’m enjoying the travel and experimenting with nodes. Def fun. I can’t wait to see what is popping in Toronto, saw they have a node going up on the cn tower or something ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I had a whatev +10db antenna on my WisMesh Pocket v2, had problems TXing indoors in NYC….got a muzi from an Amazon locker and I can’t wait to come home and try it out; feeling a little positive about that

[midnight mural]

I thought it was awesome you saw my airplane TX 😎

[abstract iron]

Yeah dude! so lucky to be able to catch that

[midnight mural]

What a week it has been in LA, not going to hit 500 I don’t think, but damn

[jaunty harness]

BRRN is running Meshsense w/auto-traceroutes and enabled submitting to their node map in case anyone wasn't aware

[abstract iron]

Do we know who Metaphor Met is?

this is from an indoor t1e!

[jaunty harness]

Don’t think so, sure seems Williamsburgish area from the RF - maybe that dprk node renamed?

[abstract iron]

can you see this node?

[jaunty harness]

yeah

[abstract iron]

good point re that dprk node. v crude judgment based on SNR and RSSI it's slightly closer to me than you. because I'm direct to it with a t1e on a nightstand.. not optimal

[spark sapphire]

It seems to me that tape is the antenna holder for meshstatic

[jaunty harness]

3M-Powered

[topaz hull]

h

[abstract iron]

it also flakes in/out of existence like that dprk node did

[glossy pine]

@old wave I think would be better to not publish the non-Mqtt mesh

[tough acorn]

The next time you walk by at least whistle, I'll wave an antenna at you...

[abstract iron]

https://www.radioddity.com/products/nanovna-f-v2?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=New Launch | NanoVNA-F V2 Antenna Analyzer (Purchased)

got this as a new release email

[jaunty harness]

oooo nice!

[twin root]

insta blocked, thanks 🙂

[thin rivet]

Yo send me the link to the 2 for 10

[tough acorn]

They have been around for maybe the past five years in one form or another. I have a very similar one along with a slightly larger one with N connectors. Great toys!! Amazon has a similar one for about $50. https://www.amazon.com/Seesii-Nanovna-S1-Vector-Network-Analyzer/dp/B0D2W8QZQC/ref=sr_1_21?crid=IJTPABNOWALB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gAMk4beKYKK114NGWNfG9Q-_flv2QK5ZDmKjjocG1I3aOKbITilmbrW2xKhPZ9BLVInKNTWVKFFVbCs0QbMn9qvLpNoAtHSONRzYJzug5VER2iwqIWjCtxz04YX2g1p51zzDXloT5A_B8n3Ag-sVZCu71n6NxmBcmf3HxzRDCVctFBF2_kRVshBWERk5rODLbVpAYn0TOn0vfCxggHWOG4b5XCgGNpuDOguYNTzNdJ4.dWHrl2HO8Ok7j1WQ1sZveYDl_hhF3Fe1nvIYtrAithc&dib_tag=se&keywords=vna+antenna+analyzer&qid=1745085694&sprefix=VNA%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-21

This one is a bit easier to use but it will not give you a freq. vs SWR graph. https://www.amazon.com/N1201SA-Vector-Impedance-Antenna-Analyzer/dp/B06VVVCKN8/ref=sr_1_39?crid=IJTPABNOWALB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.n9QKUocDKbLC-uiykbLccG7-io56jbBzJXmm0e2Pm_5q-HHqfs323ZiL59nT4tyBJr_oqwNl-mwUnbmyvuHKUCTt4kRV8EBVb9iJVAcLyqmeNiIK4_aaSOsTOgSB8jyYjH96N7XowZdZ-Zev6-yFRE2y70l0aNItNh_0VHytXwZzspgIf4iRexaZ870SPmAqRVcuhGaYxAyTs9nakYFxx-iArUGuR0lxtTkc5Y4A8kc.7Qfe6j1tPL2VYD7P0E6qpptgNKn3xRZeN11OQZiMa_c&dib_tag=se&keywords=vna+antenna+analyzer&qid=1745086458&sprefix=VNA%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-39&xpid=efdEUtBFrWzcu

I take that back, the second unit will do graphing!

[old wave]

Sorry I’m not sure what this means. I haven’t had a node running for about a month though.

[jaunty harness]

Heh, I think there was some confusion, unless you also operate Bay Ridge Repeater Node / BRRN / !a20a0f40

[thin rivet]

Hey can someone explain to me why my messages are “acknowledged by another node” and not sending to other people?

[abstract iron]

ayo xam are you still here? blast a nodeinfo

[abstract iron]

nice got this one

[glossy pine]

Outta town this weekend

[jaunty harness]

acknowledged by another node simply means some other node in the mesh heard you message and relayed it, that is separate than you sending a message out to a specific node that may/may not be within range to hear it direct or hoplimit to have it be delivered by the mesh

[thin rivet]

So did they or did they not receive the message?

[jaunty harness]

Acknowledged by another node means exactly that, another node heard, and acknowledged receiving your message but nothing else about if it was delivered as you intended. Was it to the primary public channel or a DM?

[thin rivet]

dm

[jaunty harness]

yeah, so the acknowledgement is merely some other node heard your message, and relayed it. why it didn't reach other person could be any # of reasons but that's independent of the other node's ack. like if the node that sent the ack isn't heard by anyone else, it essentially went nowhere. conversely it could have gone out to some other that heard it and also in turn relayed it, and another, and another at which point it will stop being retransmitted as it reached 3 hops (default). if the other person you DM'd isn't within RF range for direct, or that hop limit for the mesh, it will not be delivered.

[karmic junco]

https://youtube.com/shorts/CGW6PT9jZ4Q?si=Mqug2kowUk2Vs2AR

[thin rivet]

I want this

But for me and the homies

[midnight mural]

Zilla, “Encrypted send failed”

[karmic junco]

I'm not certain what it is yet. But I saw it and was like ain't that like half of what meshtastic is

[thin rivet]

It is called Totem Featival Compass I looked it up

Also Meshtastic is cooler because it doesn’t just track, but you can also DM, as well as connect to fellow nerds as far as 7 hops away, as well as no subscription as it is basically like a celular (metaphorically) network but just texting

I hope they add calling and images one day (if they can) because how else can I send shitposts to my fellow mesh users

[abstract iron]

unsure about this because afaik no reset on zll1 node

so would think it has same key? also confirm that I can still remote admin my other nodes with this one

so that would seem to confirm no key change...

[midnight mural]

@abstract iron I’m out on the river again, rebooted my t1000…..same song. Oh well.

[karmic junco]

Totem is subscription?

So totem just uses what they call unity mesh network. So far it looks like it uses lora

[exotic merlin]

Can I ask, what settings are folks using for licensed operation?

Are folks still using Long Fast presets at the standard frequency?

[karmic junco]

Good question. I was going to just say"more power" but I was not certain it it changed the encryption.

Still the default. For now the default is the way to see everyone.

[exotic merlin]

Encryption isn’t allowed for licensed operation. Perhaps folks are in plain old “LongFast” with no key?

[karmic junco]

It's.. possible

But I've never configured it that way

Its always asked for a key. Even in licensed.

[jaunty harness]

N1UGK I believe it was mentioned running in licensed mode and never heard anyone

[exotic merlin]

I saw the same on un-keyed LongFast.

I was also surprised to see (regular keyed) MediumFast was totally empty in my part of town.

[tough acorn]

This antenna from Amazon is at least tuned to the right band. Can't beat the price! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DS7XRHP5?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

[tough acorn]

The half-wave with the sma base looks ok but may be tuned to the high side of the band, the one next to it standing on the desk was tuned to the low side. Both should be fine..

The antenna that came with my T Echo was plain crap..

Those wanting a bit of downtilt can try this puppy from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Fiberglass-SenseCAP-EasyLinkIn-SyncroB/dp/B09N2H166D/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1SJI97P35TPA5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._odDIsOVkzmpPzsJmBoiLtfP08eu2jC5F59msENRNup1XKe0_PpM359xkjYs-__sJ3-4abTqPb6GsxyfHreBrVOOI5ivt-us4QZMr0B_J_o7AHHesZUmjbaYNxoH27vs-GwmWYJiaRHkVTJdv4PsN_vo3sqiuf9V_EeCX7XvkNnpAk1dpDL-t24oj9zBkgrU_n-YduucpcnTYQA0TrKG3y3cy-zow9hRFcGdi-9adufOmLxqrZJfZtM2z9wC4cfz9IYA0e94DfpAI4wxOujxbrKMPNvW6KbP3W1JOjaKF_g.Ef3gwq80Nym6wxV-ZV3eUhbqG_UTJhhZDbLm5BtxBAw&dib_tag=se&keywords=slinkdsco&qid=1745168619&sprefix=slinkdsco%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-5

[abstract iron]

I got that analyzer you linked, stuwho, and I'll post what I measure on these various ali and muzi antennas I have

I forget what licensed mode can even get us? We can operate on 433mhz or we can use >1 watt on 915mhz, if we had the hardware for that

[midnight mural]

I see someone with a kite on Roosevelt Island…..I need a kite I think lol

[abstract iron]

def. or a drone?

has anyone written a script to parse the serial logs and grab nodeids and traffic, or similar?

i have a rpi3 with a winmesh on usb

[midnight mural]

Oh def a kite, my eyes see it! lol, streamers and all!

[abstract iron]

hey a visitor

[glossy pine]

Could I run this cable out my window so that I could get the antenna to peak over the roof line

[abstract iron]

pizza you ever catch other nodes on Roosevelt?

there's that rooftop bar you could go up to to try to get out..it's near cornell?

[midnight mural]

I am in Manhattan across from it. There is a park over the river that is for walking, biking etc, so that’s my open air shot to get over to BK and Queens usually

I’m usually south of the bridge/tram

So I see: bridge, then south a tall blue/gray building….then south of that is Cornell, then south of that, across from 54th street in Man, the open spot where I saw the kite flying

Either of those buildings to the south of the bridge would be better than the 20’ above sea level 🤣

[abstract iron]

ACk your mesh msg pizza

hey I got a TR!

[jaunty harness]

Anyone besides a.li3n got a 2.4GHz Meshtastic radio?

[jaunty harness]

i've seen some here and there, lots of info in #python for using the api including the super cool mudp that pdxlocs wrote to monitor Meshtasic UDP traffic. i can build you a hat or better a meshstick for that raspi, and there's also a Meshsense port which while pokey locally can run --headless over your network.

[abstract iron]

Ok. Let's see...

what the heck is Meshtastic udp traffic??

https://github.com/Affirmatech/MeshSense/issues/13

hmmm

[abstract iron]

trying to invite Metaphor again

they are direct hop to my indoor t1e

[daring moth]

Make sure to use the invite link on Meshtastic's homepage, not whatever you get by copying a link of this channel.

[abstract iron]

Yes, used that invite link we came up with earlier

I'm powering up a nrf52 on 433 mhz

[abstract iron]

it's up. if anyone wants to do a sked lmk

[tough acorn]

433 MHz ham freqs. Do not know if it buys u anything on the 900 MHz band.

[tough acorn]

What kind of cable and how long is the cable run?

[glossy pine]

I dunno and as long as I could maybe 10 feet so get it over the roof line

[abstract iron]

I don' t think I have any cables for this stuff, sorry. probably have a few so-239 cables around

[tough acorn]

You may need to order an SMA to type N adaptor if u are checking base antennas.

[abstract iron]

I've got a bunch of adapters laying around I hope I'm good

I used to have a window passthru and feed N to the outside at a different apartment

[tough acorn]

Amazon probably has a cable that length, u just have to check what connector you need to mate the radio and antenna ends.

[tough acorn]

It's a handy device, u cannot go wrong getting it.

[radiant cairn]

Yes, I ran it for a few weeks, no key, long fast. Heard nobody, ever.

[twin root]

damn the nj side of the water's connection to the mesh is so bad now with no GULL and no node in the WTC

I am going to get the WTC node back up - I just got my femtofoxes in

we literally had the hardware totally fail in there - only 1 of 2 times I have seen total hardware failure on a RAK board

[thin rivet]

All of my dms still say “acknowledged by another node”

[twin root]

^ that means they are hitting A node but just not the node you are trying to DM

[thin rivet]

What should I do?

[daring moth]

I guess try again? Just don't send DMs too frequently, as the mesh can only handle a certain amount of messages per minute.

[thin rivet]

Ah ok

[twin root]

It just means that the part of the mesh you are in and the part they are in are not routable/connected. The solution? Expand the mesh or move to a different/closer location to who your trying to message

[midnight mural]

So what’s a better radio, usb mesh stick or a hat mesh adv? I’m looking for a raspi solution for home and mobile, prefer it to be powerful

[twin root]

The hat is 1 watt which is great

[abstract iron]

interesting

[abstract iron]

on 915?

I set up a 433, licensed, euro 433, duty cycle override, power set to 30 dB

[jaunty harness]

1W is better for home, mobile is 10x the power to xmit and thus less *battery life - the bottom line though is if you don't have LOS 1W won't help you, you're still screaming at a wall just louder

[abstract iron]

which hat is this? from Rak? (aside they're having a sale on some stuff before the next wave of taxes turn on)

[jaunty harness]

heh the 1W Raspi hats are in #1174474453359526050 (Rabbit Labs, Mesh-Adv,) along with the standalone Femtofox

[abstract iron]

oh nice thx

[thin rivet]

I reset my node

Once i rediscover nodes I’ll dm one to test

[radiant cairn]

Isn’t 433 EU only? Yes, 915. I haven’t tried any other LoRa bands

[abstract iron]

https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band Chart/Hambands4_Color_17x11.pdf

my understanding is 433 falls in our 70cm priva

privs

[thin rivet]

Does anyone know what a line between to nodes on the mesh map means on the app?

[midnight mural]

I use 433MHz with my SDR dongle on occasion to look at TPMS, security sensors and weather stations. Pretty neat and boring

[abstract iron]

oh like rtl_433

[midnight mural]

100%

[abstract iron]

Yah they're fun to mess with. flipper zero too

[terse gull]

does anyone feel they have a "reliable" nyc mesh connection? I run a node from work and one from home. It's pretty "spotty" to message between them for lack of a better word

been trying various antennas without much difference

i've also seen one or the other or both receive the usual on the public channel

this is all expected behaviour i suppose, just figured i'd ask if anyone has some special sauce to share

[abstract iron]

some days it's better than others. but now I had to take down my birdfeeder node because theyree doing construction so my path was affected

I think it varies because some nodes move around. like that Metaphor node heh

it either ties together all my WB meshing or is off the air. ???

it's improved a lot since just January

[terse gull]

i have noticed the improvement

my antenna is also inside against the window which i know has an invisibile metalic coating... (lighter trick)

there is scaffold and construction around my place, but will eventually put it outside

[midnight mural]

I have little to no connectivity inside at home. I can hit my indoor relay node at home from the east river on my portable. The East River for me is my closest open area/line of sight space to me. I think if someone had a rooftop node on Roosevelt Island south, my home node would be able to connect.

[karmic junco]

Not I...

My t1000 hasn't seen crap again. Lol

Very bleh

And then .. they forgot about my order

For like a month.

[rare sparrow]

Hmmmm

Mines been working quite well

[karmic junco]

Said inventory issue was supposed to be resolved April 20

[rare sparrow]

Even better than my RAK

[karmic junco]

It works ok outside but I'm very flat.

[rare sparrow]

Sometimes only T1000E gets the message

[karmic junco]

And my base stations are still out of action until ver 3.0

[rare sparrow]

RAK got nothing 🥲

[midnight mural]

Have you swapped antennas by any chance? Just guessing here, I have had mixed results in any major market I’ve been in.

[karmic junco]

Ill try my eco today

[abstract iron]

It sounds counterproductive but with respect to windows, I frequently put the nodes a few feet from windows

All the ones I deal with are coated

I don't know how to measure this but I think types of glass and coatings just reflect RF if it's too close

That said, my gfs former apartment, I could put the winmesh && big aliexpress 915 right next to the window and it worked rgreat

[radiant cairn]

Yep, it’s right there in the middle of 70cm

Wasn’t sure if we were referring to unlicensed use, that wouldn’t be recommended in 70cm, it’s not ISM designated and likely more noticeable there.

[abstract iron]

yeah I set the node name to my callsign and the licensed use mode disables forwarding anything but the main channel I think

Yeah it picked this rebroadcast mode for me

[twin root]

it disables forwarding of anything that is encrypted. That would still forward nodeinfo and most telemetry on the main channel

[woven trellis]

So I ended up getting a tdeck as well as the WisMesh Repeater Mini. Tdeck’s showed up, still waiting for the wismesh.

[midnight mural]

@jaunty harness meshstick, is that something you personally assemble? Or have assembled?

[woven trellis]

“BL_1” is me. I take it most of the group is on the default channel?

[midnight mural]

I love these turnkey solutions as much as the DIY ones. I’m very interested in the WisMesh Repeater Mini. Seems like a sweet device for camping/car node.

[midnight mural]

Also, totally interested in the tdecks too 🤣but really turnkey solar stuff

[woven trellis]

Totally… a ways back I used to run a makerspace for the agency I worked at. Making electronics at home comes with lots of toxic fumes I’d rather not expose my family to and space considerations.

My plan is to setup the mini in the window and use the tdeck on the go as I learn how to do things with the deck, maybe setup a weather station with the kid.

I’ve considered participating at hack manhattan, though time and inclination has been lacking on my end… folks there are very friendly (if anyone is ever considering)

[midnight mural]

I’ve been making weather stations aplenty over the years. I highly encourage it; that’s what kinda got me hooked on this

LowMesh Pocket-S Portable Solar Node is the other turnkey solar device my eye is on, more for backpacking vs camping/car node.

[woven trellis]

Any recommendations on windowable kits (we don’t have roof access) that are noob/kiddo friendly?

Also we are in a high rise so outdoor access isn’t really an option.

[midnight mural]

I have my WisMesh Pocket just sitting on the window, nothing fancy. More fancy setups have involved tape, 3M tape if you are super fancy, lol.

[woven trellis]

What sensors are on it?

[midnight mural]

Nothing but GPS, that’s off

The only sensors I have outside of disabled GPS is temp & light (I think) in my T-1000E

[karmic junco]

There are definitely a lot of the older chips out there

The techo sees way more than the t1000 as far as distinct nodes

But not quite as far.

[maiden thistle]

I enable GPS on my t1000e to provide time to the mesh

[jaunty harness]

you can get partial/full assembled by JLCPCB's PCBA service, or just the PCBs and do all the SMD/throughhole work yourself

[twin root]

It's back up and running, now at a watt!

Node is BOKN, with a client-mute companion node HSMS which reads out temp, voltage, and solar current.

[jaunty harness]

Nice! using INA219/3221 for the solar?

def hearing BOKN over here in Brooklyn

[twin root]

Yes the RAK16000

My connection to BK isn't so good since GULL left JC

[jaunty harness]

Heh seeing it between 1-3 hops depending on

[twin root]

The femtofox is such badass hardware

I have it hooked up to a Wifi HaLow radio in that box and can SSH into it from my apartment 20 stories down

Whole setup is consuming a watt ish on avg, solar panel just started pumping in juice

(LiFe voltages not lipo)

[jaunty harness]

hah nice! yeah I love myne - still sorting out the babelfox though which has been fun... and I haven't even gotten to meshtasticd cfg but because it was UDP on network w/femto it was receiving NODEINFO and even got someone running meshsense trying to traceroute

[twin root]

What is babelfox?

[abstract iron]

got the donk 1W at work today

[jaunty harness]

babelfox - def not ready for primetime (e.g. the ethernet isn't wired up correctly, haven't even gotten to checking on RF or LTE modem)

but basically big bro to femtofox, larger version of same pokey cpu+64MB but more I/O so and uses E80-900 for 915MHz + 2.4GHz LoRa and an LTE modem

[glass marsh]

Hi folks, new to the meshtastic community but loving it so far. Have 2 nodes up ROBS in Staten Island and ROBB this one is in downtown Brooklyn on the 28th floor looking south.

[twin root]

I can hit your nodes from Hoboken!

I hit them through NERO

[glass marsh]

Able to send messages between them

Nice, yeah I have a good connection to NERO

[twin root]

NERO has great connection to a lot of nodes, but that node being in router mode is hurting the rest of the mesh

Also he has it set to 7 hops or something.

[glass marsh]

Is it? Seems to be in the highest point of nyc

[twin root]

Yeah, because this is a public mesh and there are people all over the place. What is happening when that person sets it to router is there suppressing re-broadcasts from nodes that are in range, which is a lot of nodes. As a result, if I'm 15 ft away from you and we both have a connection to Nero, Even if he is 20 mi away, My node will not rebroadcast your packets (Nero will supress my nodes re-broadcasts)

I've asked him like 15 times over the past year to switch it off and he just ignores me.

It's even more destructive to the mesh with the amount of coverage that he has

[glossy pine]

If we ignore his node does that just mute his messages or does it preclude him from forwarding mine?

[jaunty harness]

it mutes all their packets but they still hear you

[jaunty harness]

seems to have dropped down to 5 at some point (what I'm seeing currently but def seen 7 aka the "Staten Island Special" before)

[daring moth]

It's likely an unmonitored node. Which is why I thought my suggestion of sending a daily reminder to only use the CLIENT family of roles might work better. FWIW, I have not been sending those PSAs recently.

[jaunty harness]

the problem is 2-fold, infra roles AND staying on older firmware to maintain ROUTER_CLIENT. there's def confusion over meshtastic roles since even a plain old default CLIENT will still repeat, but there's people who see ROUTER and REPEATER and don't actually understand the impact

[twin root]

He messages people from it all the time, at least once a week

[glossy pine]

So maybe if we all message him together around the same time to tell him he’s fucking things up

[midnight mural]

I have no problems being a little blunt 😎

[proven grove]

Seen while walking to GCT on Vanderbilt

[glossy pine]

Looks like there’s a new wtc node 🎉

[twin root]

Really?

On the WTC? It's not mine

I can't see anything from Hoboken and I have visual unobstructed LOS to the WTC soo

[glossy pine]

soo you on the wrong side I guess

[blissful moon]

got my pi hat.. and put in my raspberry pi.. doing some tests on the bench and looks good.

for who is running linux native how to clear the node list.. I wan't my pi re-learn all.

[jaunty harness]

hmmmm depends on what created the existing nodeDB - if it's serial/usb device and you interact with it via meshtastic python-cli meshtastic --reset-nodedb should do it. if you're talking about meshtasticd the linux-native service than you can try meshtastic -t --reset-nodedb but if that doesn't work time to get heavy handed and blow it all away via sudo service meshtasticd stop && sudo rm -rf /root/.portduino && sudo service meshtasticd start (def option of last resort as it's the nuclear option, meshtastic -t --get security.private_key at minimum to back that up first)

[karmic junco]

I'm reading all this and need popcorn

[glossy pine]

I had to learn the cli just so I could turn off the buzzer in a new device. HaX0r!

[normal osprey]

I had to set all my T1000-E to only buzz for the alert bell character and not for messages.

Also, just ordered 18 more T1000-E for friends to use at EDC Las Vegas.

[abstract iron]

TIL there's a web version of using your mesh node??

[abstract iron]

v cool. had my first example of mesh node to node working in close area this past weekend at Navy Yard car show. 5G and LTE were swamped but we could still easily text with mesh. nice

(I mean, of course we could, but it was my first practical application besides just exploratory or comm-prepping)

what's the new WTC node?

[midnight mural]

And a raspberry pi to go with all that so you can play along 😎you can’t get hooked on Linux if you don’t try 🙃

[azure quest]

Can I ask tinkering questions here?

[jaunty harness]

definitely! worst case, some sends you to #1194757507013427250 or #electrical-engineering for a better answer

[azure quest]

Nice.

I am trying to get a relay to switch on and off. It's connected to an esp32 wifi Lora's 5V pin for power and pin 16 for IN. When I turn it on it switches on and stays that way. The green light wanes rhythmically, I guess based on the code script sending the commands?

This is my first project.

[jaunty harness]

hrmm it depends on the code, something is toggling Pin 16 low to activate the circuit but seems to stay low instead of reseting back to high so the relay stays open?

[azure quest]

Sorry, but it's a bit long, but this is the code. Is this correct then?

#include <Arduino.h>

// === Relay Configuration ===
#define relay_pin1 16
#define relay_pin2 17
#define on_duration 1000 // 1 second

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
delay(1000);
Serial.println("Relay Alternating Test Started");

pinMode(relay_pin1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(relay_pin2, OUTPUT);

// Start with both OFF
digitalWrite(relay_pin1, HIGH);
digitalWrite(relay_pin2, HIGH);
}

void loop() {
// Turn ON relay 1, OFF relay 2
digitalWrite(relay_pin1, LOW);  // ON (active LOW)
digitalWrite(relay_pin2, HIGH); // OFF
Serial.println("Relay 1: ON, Relay 2: OFF");
delay(on_duration);

// Turn OFF relay 1, ON relay 2
digitalWrite(relay_pin1, HIGH); // OFF
digitalWrite(relay_pin2, LOW);  // ON
Serial.println("Relay 1: OFF, Relay 2: ON");
delay(on_duration);
}

[daring moth]

Please surround them with the following:
```c
code goes here
```

[jaunty harness]

hmm, that does look like it should be doing what you expect - flipflopping the relays every second but seems like maybe it's doing the erlay 1 on / 2 off, then freezes which could be related to the next Serial.println line... do you have arduino's serial port monitor setup and watching the serial output?

[abstract iron]

I am not an EE but does it need a drain resistor to go down to low when the CPU switches it off

(note I could be misapplying experimentation)

[midnight mural]

Yeah, and what side of the building is it on? Hoping it’s north 😇

[azure quest]

Yeah. I just tested. It's switching between relay PIN_LOW and high in a loop.

[daring moth]

Another option would be to attend the Open House that's currently happening at #1300525496945348648. There's a good chance that someone there can help you in-person.

[azure quest]

Me neither but I'll check on this.

[azure quest]

That'll be great.

[midnight mural]

Oh yeah, so many versions.

Linux using meshtasticd

also mainly Linux docker container for https://client.meshtastic.org/

https://client.meshtastic.org/ proper

and I’m sure other stuff besides the Apple & Android apps

[jaunty harness]

any esp32 device should support the webui though enabling wifi means you can't connect over bt while it's active

[jaunty harness]

OH! Then.. I'm misunderstanding, that seems to be what the code is doing and what I thought you were trying but rewatching the video I can see it is flipping off/on so... what is it you're trying to do, have it flip on and stay on?

[azure quest]

I am new to this but am not supposed to hear the click? I just hear it once and it stays like that. It powers a water pump and the water pump stays on regardless.

[jaunty harness]

so you DO want it to flipflop, and the code appears to be doing that but the relay isn't actually doing that, just staying on?

[azure quest]

Yep

[jaunty harness]

k, then probably is actually a pullup resistor between the esp32 pin and 5V anything like >1kΩ should work

[azure quest]

Thanks! I'll try that. I'll let you know of the results.

[midnight mural]

If I sent a message on my private channel, and it shows acknowledged, does that mean that if I only have one other node on that channel, it should be there?

Because I sent it from Teaneck and it seems too good to be true

[normal osprey]

No, I have private channel messages that show ack’d when all my other nodes are off… so they’re definitely being ack’d by other nodes.

[azure quest]

It worked! Hallelujah!

[midnight mural]

Oh, so I should DM myself then to go point to point like that

[jaunty harness]

Yeah it’s just an ack that the mesh heard the message, not that the intended party did/did not

DMing would be more reliable on 2.6 because of smart routing for DMs

[midnight mural]

Word

[jaunty harness]

so basically what you did was add the resistor so that when the esp32 takes the pin "high" (aka up to it's internal logic voltage, which is <=3.3V) the relay sees 5V on it's power input. without the resistor/pullup resistor the relay doesn't consider the pin change to be high enough to trigger toggling off. there's argument to be made about using a mosfet instead of the resistor but I'm "if it's works, it works" kinda guy

[azure quest]

Thanks for this.

[rare sparrow]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIxT9meOo1X/?igsh=MWpndjl2cm9lY21q

themeshtastic

📡 Does your #meshtastic mesh have 60+ nodes, high traffic, or is an urban area? If so, you may have outgrown the default LongFast modem preset. Learn when and why to switch for better performance.
⠀
🔗 Check out our latest blog post using the link in our bio.

Instagram

When do we want to test 😎

[daring moth]

I guess after everyone here updates their nodes to 2.6.x. 🤷

[twin root]

We have people with firmware older than my nephews on the mesh rn

[rare sparrow]

That would probably be 2030😌

[daring moth]

I meant everyone in this Discord thread.

[daring moth]

Or we could just request that people only switch if they're on 2.6.x, and stay on LongFast otherwise.

[tropic gulch]

All right, see you guys on medium fast

[normal osprey]

I’m already testing Short Fast slot 80 in preparation for EDC LV. There’s a group that’s gonna have well placed infra nodes there (still CLIENT role) and are gonna be on SF80 with about 30 nodes.

My groups will have about 40 nodes and other groups are planning on joining SF80 at the fest also.

[rare sparrow]

Let us know how that goes 💪

[normal osprey]

Short Fast might not be ideal for NYC mesh but seems like it’ll be great for a small racetrack with 100+ nodes on the same frequency slot.

[midnight mural]

I have both Pizza Delivery Dude & Casey Jones on 2.6.4 and am 100% down for another preset.

My main question is, can you have multiple preset types on one node….I feel that’s a big no

[jaunty harness]

as i understand bay area is testing/moving to shortfast, but they have their shit together 8)

[jaunty harness]

one radio, per preset

[midnight mural]

Cali was doing things last week when I was there

I’m still down to test

[normal osprey]

I’m updating all my nodes to 2.6.4 also and moving them to Short Fast for EDC LV and some testing beforehand.

Would there be any issues flying with 24 nodes (mostly T1000-E)?

[jaunty harness]

there are... solutions though, pdxlocations has a setup of 4 meshsticks on the same raspi that were bridged via mqtt in 2.5.x. i saw someone's very clever LongFast<->MediumFast bridge with 2.6.x using UDP - both nodes were esp32 for wifi and another esp32 inbetween acting as an AP

#solar-power message

[midnight mural]

Oh that’s interesting

[rare sparrow]

2.6.6 is out 👏

[midnight mural]

I totally see how that works, MQTT is the handler lol

[jaunty harness]

I was actually discussing ways to bridge MF with gardener earlier... the fact that his deployments are also connected to nycmesh means we could in theory have UDP backhaul between all his nodes

[jaunty harness]

yeah that was needed for 2.5.x, with 2.6.x if the node has network it can do UDP automagically

[jaunty harness]

I'm waiting for 2.6.6.6 🤘

[midnight mural]

Oh interesting. That was a bit over the top for me. What’s the UDP back haul doing, just sending traffic over the nycmesh infrastructure via UDP?

[jaunty harness]

yeah, exactly - they just need to be on the same network and network allow UDP traffic

[midnight mural]

That’s cool

[jaunty harness]

it's VERY COOL

[midnight mural]

Speaking of updates. If I update to 2.6.6, how can I disable my location before it makes it to the map? Or is that only showing because I have my location shared on my private channel 0?

[jaunty harness]

anyway, so yeah I'm down for mediumfast stuff but have concern about abandoning longfast means we cut off the old firmware/infra nodes (yeah!) but also, finding new people (boooo)

[twin root]

We would have to have an organized and concerted effort to do so

[midnight mural]

Will/can someone spam the OG with the info?

[twin root]

There have been places that have done it, the Bay area mesh is very well organized

[jaunty harness]

do you have LongFast/AQ== as primary or your private channel?

[midnight mural]

No, my AQ== is on channel 1

[twin root]

If you do this then people will not be able to get your node info without doing an interrogation

Only channel 0 is what keys your node info

Also location etc, all telemetrics

[jaunty harness]

foooor suuuuure, but we're starting to get some coordination going

[midnight mural]

I ask because I got my T1000-E in SoCal last week, I turned off GPS to prolong battery and it shows over there, still, on the map, plus my other node thinks it’s still there too….so it thinks nodes here are 2500 miles away

[midnight mural]

I’m here to have the smrt people tell me what to do 🫡

[twin root]

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, it is 100% possible, I'm doing it with a much larger mechtastic deployment right now, burningmesh.org

[jaunty harness]

leave them in the window for a while to get lock, they still trying to orient with satellites from 2500 miles away

[jaunty harness]

oh! i didn't take it that way at all and yeah I know you run burningmesh - was enthusiastically agreeing it can be done on large scale with coordination

[midnight mural]

So it’s cool to turn on GPS since I’m not on channel 0

[jaunty harness]

having nycmesh wifi backhaul is kinda amazing unique possibility, and wouldn't even be feasible without us getting on discord

[twin root]

if channel zero is not the unencrypted one, and you turn on your location, it will not be transmitted there.

That being said, if your channel one is the unencrypted one, it's still possible for an individual node to send you an interrogation and get your node info including your positional data

You can go to the channel settings and individually turn on and off what channel you want location to go to

[twin root]

Yeah I'm super excited to see what this does at Defcon

I haven't fucked with it yet, definitely want to

[midnight mural]

So basically, if you want your GPS data to be private, disable it.

I def don’t want precise, “close”’is ok I guess though

[twin root]

You can disable it either at a channel level or at a device level

I'll take a quick video

[rare sparrow]

Two unknown repeaters!? 🫨

[normal osprey]

Do you know much about the Defcon firmware? I read they had 400+ nodes on Short Fast. Wondering if there were any other major changes in the fw as we’re planning on using Short Fast at EDC.

[twin root]

Yes. I know quite a bit about it, it was the same as the brining man FW I deployed last year