US-Idaho

[frail hedge]

I now have 17 nodes discovered. 14 excluding mine

[woeful narwhal]

is it mandatory to do a nodedb reset when you change frequencies?

[frail hedge]

Yes because it could cause issues with detecting people

Ideally regenerate your security key as well

[alpine crescent]

HPR_c312 is en route!

[mellow girder]

How’s boise coming along?

[clear flare]

Can see MHR from Hayden. Sounds like they’re seeing some stuff, but I haven’t seen HPR yet.

[frail hedge]

Cold

But complete

[clear flare]

Getting the HPR femtofox configured

@alpine crescent

It'll have BBS built in lol

[alpine crescent]

HPR will be even more beastly than we originally thought haha

[clear flare]

It'll be pretty much teh same setup as pre-G2 Harrison (minus the ridonculous battery pack)

[frail hedge]

I got 28 reported nodes now in boise area

[clear flare]

Hoping that the HPR upgrades make a big difference!

[alpine crescent]

I started a TV specific channel on one of my nodes. You think that might be a good idea to spread around? That way we can have some chatter here separate from the greater freq51 channel. Just not sure what sort of key to use for it.

[frail hedge]

Not a bad idea to have channels dedicated to each region.

I forgot that i want to make a node that's a bird house

Because that would be cool

[alpine crescent]

You think we should use a full encryption key for it, or a 1 bit 4-digit one, like with Freq51?

[frail hedge]

Hmm either or since it's not a private channel

[alpine crescent]

Maybe something like this

[clear flare]

IMO do TV== 😛

[frail hedge]

You son bitch, thats actually really smart and funny

Hmm just thought with the birdhouse idea. You think that would be a way to have the park sevices let us put some nodes in the parks

[clear flare]

Do you know someone? 😛

You could always ask

[frail hedge]

Or i could ask for forgiveness

[clear flare]

43.606551 N, 116.217039 W

43.557673 N, 116.176665 W

43.602679 N, 116.249975 W```

All of those are 25 feet off the ground, so basically on top of 2nd story buildings?

Might be a good over winter goal 😄

In town to give folks a solid connection before hopping out to the relays

[frail hedge]

For halow?

[clear flare]

Nah. just extra in town nodes for more coverage in case someone can't get to the relays for whatever reason

[frail hedge]

There's a lot of spots for us in the valley. Just a matter of permission

Unless you got a cargo drone lol

[clear flare]

Better get working on your pitch!

Sell it haha

not to make money, but sell the project and convince them that by allowing this small little solar device they are giving back to the community 😄

Do you guys have a hackerspace up there at all? I tried finding one and struck out

[frail hedge]

No idea, and no idea what that is

[clear flare]

its a place where people with interests in technology, science, and those sorts of things meet up. kind of a club but not really

[frail hedge]

Haven't really looked for such a thing so maybe im just missing it

[frail hedge]

Key TQ== or we soing TV==

Looks like TQ==

TV== doesn't work

[mellow girder]

can you do VCR==? lol

[frail hedge]

We are old but atleast let us have DVD==

I did tq== because seems limited in key options

[alpine crescent]

That was the first one I tried and it said no lol

It automatically changed it to TQ

[clear flare]

https://tenor.com/view/nacho-why-confused-jack-black-gif-8714598

[frail hedge]

I think key changes based on name, maybe

[clear flare]

nah key can be anything

well almost

its not tied to the name

[alpine crescent]

There seem to be some requirements, but I can't find what they are.

[mellow girder]

the key changes when you do the name but if i recall if you do the key after all is good. DVR / TiVo

[alpine crescent]

TV is red but TQ goes green. 🤷‍♂️

[frail hedge]

Whatever it's tq

[mellow girder]

any of these work?

[frail hedge]

Dvd failed

Eh whatever TQ== is easy

Also i sent message and something confirmed

Or does it just confirm in channel if no one is there but a node was connected

[marsh notch]

There used to be one centered around this store called Reuseum. They branded the maker space as Open Lab Idaho, but it may have fizzled out.

[alpine crescent]

I saw that one online but wasn't able to find much info about it.

[frail hedge]

Random tagent why is the best pizza from albertos? Seriously how dod the grocery store be a better pizza place the the pizza places

[deft copper]

Weird Albertos is mexican food here.

[frail hedge]

Albertsons

But albertos is funnier

[deft copper]

We had Albertsons but that was 3 generations ago. They all became Fresh Market, and then Macey's.

[frail hedge]

I only go because lunch time,lazy, or i need something like a nicer quality pasta

[deft copper]

I hear you. Half my lunch are Maverick burritos or pizza because I am lazy and it's close. I never would have imagined I would like gas station pizza, but the Maverick Detroit style is really good.

[frail hedge]

In all fairness Detroit style is the best

[deft copper]

If you ever happen to be down in SLC. I highly recommend Bricks corner.
https://brickscornerslc.com/

[frail hedge]

Will do, because almost went to alc this year to see baby metal concert. But question is can it beat out my Detroit pizza.

[obtuse quiver]

When I first moved here and I lived in my car Maverick was definitely my hot meal go-to. That's survival food right there.

[frail hedge]

I honestly understand why maverick because seems like it's the station with stuff that isn't just barely legally food

[obtuse quiver]

Beats Walmart deli for sure.

[frail hedge]

I feel roadkill probably beats that

[obtuse quiver]

Apparently you can get a game tag for road kill, so a lot of people agree with you!

[clear flare]

Here in Idaho, you don't even need a tag, but you can't legally take it unless you report it to game wardens and they'll give you the yay or nay

[frail hedge]

I really want to go hunting. Just the prep work for it is a pain. And unfortunately i want a deer which means a lot of work

You think it would be illegal to hunt with kamikaze birds. Like maybe the birds varry little booms and you know

[obtuse quiver]

I'd like to try it one day, but I feel like it's something you should do with someone experienced first and I don't know anyone who hunts.

[frail hedge]

It's not a drone if a living thing

[frail hedge]

Ya same, but it's scheduling, what to do about processing, where to store, and more

Though maybe bird hunting. Met some bird hunters in pearl near my node there. They made bird hunting sound appealing for first time and also ease of everything else

[clear flare]

ironically, i just got my hunting license LOL need to get my brother in law to go out with me. I've been lots of times growing up, but never really got into it

[clear flare]

There is a place near the convention center called Sicilia Pizza & Kitchen. Hands down the best wings I've ever had

That was like 8 years ago

[frail hedge]

What flavor of wings

[clear flare]

Buffalo

[frail hedge]

Funny how we all want to hunt, but at the same time this is idaho so... No surprise

[frail hedge]

Now im skeptical because thats .. rarely a worth while flavor

Or im too much of a foody because i cook too much 😂

[clear flare]

Buffalo is 100% the most traditional wing flavor

[frail hedge]

Actually is deviled wings that are the og wing flavor

Besides salt of course

https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/deviledbones

[clear flare]

Historical doesn’t make it a good benchmark 😛

[frail hedge]

Though maybe for wing sauces you might be right

[frail hedge]

And tradition isn't always the best

[frail hedge]

Though i do want to try this reicpe

Thiugh the best wings are my dads recipe. Just pure perfection

But they a breaded and baked wing. But fried because you spray them with oil before baking. Thus they get that almost fried texture and flavor

[frail hedge]

37 now

[frail hedge]

Hpr is up

And working

[deft copper]

My nodedb is populating with Boise nodes in SLC

[frail hedge]

Im seeing soc node here in Boise

The world kust got bigger

[clear flare]

when you get a chance you should DM HPR with the word ping

[frail hedge]

Oh ya

I can't dm it

It's unmonitored or infrastructure

[clear flare]

it shouldn't be

I'll have to have Brownik RA and fix that if it is

[frail hedge]

Tablerock did the same thing

[clear flare]

Cause it can BBS

and has other tools

[frail hedge]

It's off but turns itself on for some reason

[deft copper]

I am getting your test messages

!ab2e605a: Test 2 from HPR

[frail hedge]

Did you see anyone say sandwich

Because sandwiches travel, and i hope the message would to

[frail hedge]

Also connection quality to hayden is now marked as bad when it was good pike 20 ago

[deft copper]

I think we have mqtt feed from ID, so that's probably not the best place to check. I got a few messages, but not 'sandwich'

[frail hedge]

The sandwich failed to travel. Now the minds of people wont be fed

[clear flare]

HPR should be set to ignore MQTT and so are all the ID infra nodes so they won't travel as a just in case

Oh nvm I reread you @deft copper lol

[frail hedge]

And none of us are using mqtt

[clear flare]

Uplink only

oh yeah ok

lol

[frail hedge]

Ya just uplink

[clear flare]

stealth edit! lol

if Sandwich didn't travel outside of Boise it's not gonna get uplinked until we have a Boise feed

[frail hedge]

But im about to check ym hq node

Since ive been in bed because i was woken up by 7000 meshtastic notifications

Better signal to hayden then i do pearl

[clear flare]

Hayden is strong!

Imagine if all the infrastructure nodes were 1w 🤤

I need to give Southern ID that treatment

[frail hedge]

imagine if i had the spare money for that

[clear flare]

Also that lol

Hopefully we'll see like the RAK 1w be reasonably priced

[frail hedge]

i hope so, because rak kinda is the backbone of our existance it feels

[clear flare]

sometimes

[frail hedge]

104 nodes now

I wonder if texts are getting lost through all the nodes populatinga

[cyan valve]

Since changing to Freq51, I am now seeing 73 nodes including Twin Falls and SLC.

However, I am not receiving ACKs from most of the messages that I send out.

I was getting by with just an indoor node, but it might be time to setup a solar rooftop node…

[frail hedge]

Ya we all seem to be missing messages or having stuff like that

Might just be due to lack of service coverage in boise because mf speed is a little pickier on connection

So tomorrow im picking up my south relay still on default and will rebuild and tryout to deploy something tall in meridian, eagle, or boise

Hoping that gives a bit more coverage

But who knows maybe the node list updating it bogging down the mesh. So we just need s day to stabilize

[mellow girder]

pretty cool guys, well done!

[late estuary]

304 km, nice.

[mellow girder]

not sure how accurate that is.. but still lol

[clear flare]

MHR is a bit off. Real link is ~150 miles

[deft copper]

I guarantee you this is the case. We definitely saw a drop in service down South with the move to MF. It will probably take building the mesh out / node upgrades to get back to LF deliverability. Honestly in a lot of cases you can make up that 5dB link budget loss with just antenna upgrades. I am having a lot of luck with this inexpensive antenna:
#1197577977781821541 message
Also, Just looking at messages received from both my nodes in different locales and meshview, I think we are hitting hopLimits.

[mellow girder]

yup im 99% sure hop limits is the big factor right now too

[clear flare]

To go from SLC to BOI, yeah. But deliverability within your own region needs to be improved with antenna upgrades and additional strategic clients.

[mellow girder]

yup sorry that is where i was getting at 🙂 each region or area needs their own upgrades.. to make it as a whole awesome

[clear flare]

It’s also why the BBS system is so important. At least until we can build the 2.7.13 highway of favorites 🤣

Seemed like FPR MHR is doing well today. I dropped a BBS message on AIDA, so we’ll see if it shows up on FPR or DC801

[alpine crescent]

I upgraded my roof node with 2.7.13, client_base, and a 5.8dbi fiberglass antenna and have suddenly been getting strong traceroutes all afternoon!

It's a Slinkdsco, not exactly the gizont that @deft copper has recommended, but I have a feeling the result would be about the same.

[clear flare]

thats pretty new too, cause I just updated the name of the node to "The Two Towers" this afternoon 😄

its a wild return path

LOL

Could have definitely cut out two of those stops by just going ISR -> Hayden!

Mesh is gonna Mesh

[frail hedge]

I need a node now either named orc army or.... airplane

[jagged blaze]

hello idahodians, this is Ben from MeshEnvy NV group

[frail hedge]

You talking to malice and wanting to join the club

😄

[jagged blaze]

yes sir!

[frail hedge]

I feel this freq51 mesh needs a name and it's own channel now

[jagged blaze]

do you freq51 guys have a secret handshake or anything?

i keep hearing about it

[deft copper]

We need to get the utah mesh discord renamed

[frail hedge]

Gotta give up your first born which typically is easy since those are the accidents 😂

[jagged blaze]

@clear flare thanks for stopping in last night, let's work on getting up to twin falls

[clear flare]

That would be awesome! It was fun. I’ll stop back in and chat more. Always happy to have discussions!

[jagged blaze]

If you want to help out, i'd like help identifying some peak-to-peak routes from Reno (Peavine Mountain) to Twin Falls. Which peaks, who owns them, getting permission, etc. If you know how

[proud isle]

Any recommendations for an antenna? I am in a dense neighborhood, Meridian ID. The device is a solar powered RAK 4631, mounted on a roof peak.

[frail hedge]

A lot of 5-8 dbi fiberglass antenna work great

Probably can pick one up cheap at the reusesum

Or Facebook

[alpine crescent]

This is what the Utah pros have been recommending:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806241790045.html

If you want something faster (cause those AliExpress ones can take a couple weeks to arrive) but more expensive, this is the one I have on my roof in Star that has been working well:
https://a.co/d/hF35cLx

I'm waiting on a couple of those Gizonts from AliExpress now...

[proud isle]

Thank you for suggestions

[turbid ginkgo]

General question for the group. I'm headed down to Vegas for a little bit and I'm going to take my node to kill a little bit of time here and there. I'll back up the config to make it easy to transition between F51 and LongFast - is there any concern on the nodedb of the equation?

[floral wigeon]

I would assume reset it when you get there and when you get back. It might be ok without,..

[mellow girder]

yup agreed. no matter either way. just helps with confusion of nodes in the area.

@turbid ginkgo

[frail hedge]

Should be fine

[turbid ginkgo]

Thanks for the input! I'll likely let nodedb ride and in december clean nodedb to purge out the stale records.

[gilded pumice]

i notice there are no routers in Idaho Falls. we are on a roof out there i can stick something on. I might be able to get something put on the water tower also. im a noob however.

[clear flare]

Been wanting to find someone in east ID for a while!

Here is a hey what’s that of the Harrison(MHR) router on freq51:
https://www.heywhatsthat.com/?view=B6HIRX43

If you’re in reach of it, it’ll reach pretty far. It gets to Hayden Peak in Boise and Francis Peak in Utah

[gilded pumice]

i know some wireless guys up there, ill ask them

there is a cell phone tower here i have access to also. 3450 Ard Dr, Ammon, ID 83406

[clear flare]

MHR is already up 🙂 so all you gotta do is find a spot over there that can see it within 100-150 miles!

[noble jetty]

Big Southern Butte

South juniper HP

Taylor Mountain

Piney or Temple peak as well

Ideally here's what I'd do aemon. Do some heywhats that. SEE if you can see MHR but if you can get really lucky see if you can choose a spot that also sees Francis peak router in utah

You'd add a redundant link to idaho

Also if another place has great LOS on targhee and tetons that would be fairly smart. It's the easiest way to expand into Wyoming

Jump off and saddle mountain are also great candidates but they are towards the northwest.

Ideally big Southern Butte would be awesome. Naming it Volcanic Dome Router would be very apt haha

Another thing is to see if there are other meshers in your area down to help. The more routers you can deploy that are really good the better. I definitely like to keep to a rule of 3 in a semi triangular shape.. that really helps a lot cuz you get a lot of redundancy for VERY little extra congestion

If you look at Utah.. our routers are on
Ensign Peak
Francis Peak
Nelson Peak
Wasatch Crest (2)
Hill AFB high point (c6c router late)
Lake Mountain
Stansbury Island
Marys Nipple
They all overlap quite significantly and provide a ton of redundancy so in case you can't grab one you got the others to pickup the slack

(more next year) are likely to be
Mt Ogden
Several VHF society repeater sites
Red Butte Peak
Mount Wire
Desert Peak
Signal Peak
Mt Ellen
Durst Mountain
Mt Logan

[clear flare]

Twin and Burley is another decent example of routers all overlapping. Every infrastructure node can see the others so regionally, we are like 2 or 3 hops max from any other node. MHR plays a big part of that too as sort of our eye of Sauron lol

[alpine crescent]

Does anybody know whose node this is up on Squaw Butte North of Emmett? Last I saw it was still on LF20.

[gilded pumice]

to get 100-150miles, do i need a special antenna power requirement? got a recomendation for me to get?

[clear flare]

I mean, placement is 90% of it

915mhz cares mostly about radio horizon, which is ~190 miles

But, you get too far and the signal just sort of putters out

Getting a full 1W and an 5-8db antenna with a cavity filter is probably one of the best ways to make sure it gets there

[gilded pumice]

ok

what antenna is on MHR?

[gilded pumice]

Rokland 10dBi Backcountry

[clear flare]

MHR has an 8dbi low profile rokland
It's also a Station G2 with a cavity filter on it and has its power turned up a smidge to account for loss. keeps it theoretically right on the edge of legal 😄

The 150 mile connection to Hayden Peak has this same antenna on a Femtofox

[gilded pumice]

i was looking at Station G2, they seem popular. but cant buy them. (its being updated)

[jagged blaze]

hey again idahodians, just a little reminder that we're over here in NV trying to plan out a way to reach you guys. if any of you are interested in a collab (thank you @clear flare!) please find me on our discord server (https://discord.gg/gRWAccbEWN) or tag me here. Thank you!

[clear flare]

Yeah. I'm hoping we'll see a Station G3? That will be an nRF and be more battery efficient, but you can find numerous options where folks have developed thier own 1W nodes. if you reach out to wehooper in this discord he may have some stuff and he sells (i just put in an order for some of his nodes for our big infra nodes in Southern ID)

[gilded pumice]

thanks for the reference. ill contact him. i have been looking at the pi ones. I can get POE on the tower.

[clear flare]

A raspi is great. You could configure meshing-around for BBS stuff

[clear flare]

Where was the tower at?

[gilded pumice]

https://maps.app.goo.gl/iLCfEwsY5BJ4DCBz6

working on getting on the water town in idaho falls also..

[gilded pumice]

i think this is the key to making this work. Pocatello ameture radio club tower

[clear flare]

We're trying to get an angle on Big Southern Butte if you know anyone there 😮

[frail hedge]

I have an angle on a big southern butt. But it's only for me, perks of it being my wife 😆

[clear flare]

https://www.heywhatsthat.com/?view=BLC3LTFX

This would connect ALL of East ID to Southern ID and by extension the TV and the rest of FR51

This is the tower * thats up there: https://www.antennasearch.com/HTML/individual/antenna.php?unique_system_identifier=1241492&call_sign=KEU978&location_number=1

[gilded pumice]

the ham guy i was chatting with said: We currently have a Mesh LoRa network that reaches everything you describe. We have one on Kinport Peak that reaches north as far as Driggs , Rexburg and goes west and picks up the Magic Valley then extends to Boise. We also have another on Scout Mountain that goes south and will pick up Preston and Logan.
Another note that I might mention is we have found that some of the Meshtastic radios are putting out RF noise and interfering with our repeaters. I personally wouldn’t approve of adding any more Meshtastic.

kingport peak is the relay map above^

i asked for contact info on who owns the node there

[clear flare]

I'd be curious to see his findings on the RF noise interference.

[gilded pumice]

i assume its not got an RF filter

[clear flare]

Same. I'm just very curious by nature when folks say things that contradict my experiences. outside of the one time we had excessive chatter from one node's telemetry after a wonky update I haven't heard from anyone about any issues down here

MHR is on a tower site with a bunch of other radios (including some ISM stuff for commerical use) and my contact there hasn't had any issues what so ever. But as you stated, its got a filter and higher quality components.

[mellow girder]

that would be an awesome inclusion if we could get them to switch..

[gilded pumice]

it will be interesting to know how many people are using it

[gilded pumice]

seems like the small network up there is just on long/fast (east idaho)

[clear flare]

Yeah, I've tried to engage them, but they just seem to want to do their thing. I think that if they are given a chance (with BSB) to connect that it might change their minds

[gilded pumice]

i shall replace them 🙂

[frail hedge]

Replace them or "replace them"

[late estuary]

Up visiting Rexburg, ID. There’s ~40 nodes that I’ve logged from Inkom to here. They have a nice mesh for the area.

[clear flare]

I think i remember reading about some deliverability issues

[gilded pumice]

BYU-I has a nice network in rexburg.

[clear flare]

Yeah, I'm in their discord too 😄 I think that if we can open it up to them, they might jump in. But its also part of the school radio club so they might want to just do their own thing too which is cool

[noble jetty]

Interesting. So BYU I jumped on that huh

[alpine crescent]

Anyone looking for Idaho meshers to collaborate with can find us here!
https://discord.gg/zKTXN4sqS