UK - West Sussex

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove

[tawdry grove]

Hi

Is this like a DM from the main channel?

Oh

We got our own channel!!

[steady pond]

yeah

annoyingly i can seem to find the owners of the crawley nodes in the discord. when my device arrives i can make me way to crawley and try to get a message through to them. they might be willing to help get a link

also press the follow button on this channel so that you get notifs when something happens here

it would be good to get a big node up the south downs but it's a national park so idk if we can

[tawdry grove]

Yeah, we can ping them once we got the nodes. I travel through Crawley often on my bike, so hopefully will connect at some point

[tawdry grove]

I have a friend out in Rudgwick who might be interested

[steady pond]

i go out to crawley every day so should have no problems getting a ping

[steady pond]

might be a bit far

[steady pond]

another node just popped up in haywards heath

@tawdry grove

[tawdry grove]

Looks like its growing quick

[tawdry grove]

I can't see them on https://meshmap.net/

[tawdry grove]

Something on the horizon👍

[steady pond]

that's the mqtt map. the only nodes that show up on there are the ones that are connected to the internet with gps.

this is the map that you want to be using

https://map.mpowered247.com

[tawdry grove]

Oh! Its even bigger than I thought then

[steady pond]

yes

[tawdry grove]

I see what you mean about connecting with Brighton now. There's loads down there

[steady pond]

yeah

south downs make it an impossible task

[tawdry grove]

use the site https://www.heywhatsthat.com/profiler.html to figure how where is the best place to put your repeater and what nodes can reach each other.

[steady pond]

yh i use that or sometimes the scadscore one

just depends which one i can remember tbe url for at the time

[tawdry grove]

thought we could save it here

[tawdry grove]

I can't seem to DM you. Did you change a setting or something

[tawdry grove]

@steady pond

[steady pond]

yeah, sorry i didn't realise it would affect that

[steady pond]

had a conversation with ROB M7RBF. 12.8km. exhcanged waypoint.

[steady pond]

recieving 38 nodes

[steady pond]

recieved 57 nodes yesterday

[tawdry grove]

Nice!

[odd fable]

Anyone anywhere near Horsham/ Crawley?

[steady pond]

yes

tiger is in horsham

i'm just outside horsham

[odd fable]

Woah

That's a bit distressing I'm dissapointed I haven't heard you guys then.

I'm like central horsham

[steady pond]

where are you

what's your name

[odd fable]

L3M

Got L3H too but that's not turned on atm

[steady pond]

wait my grandad has you

[odd fable]

Woah

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove said he saw L3H the other day

[odd fable]

Heck!!

why the hell am I not seeing them come up then 🤔

[steady pond]

my node is currently offline for a couple of days (broken, waiting for new board) but will let you know when i'm back

[steady pond]

not sure

[odd fable]

Awesome.

[steady pond]

what antenna do you have

[odd fable]

i think there was some fuss about the firmware versions recently, and I only set up L3H in the loft on Saturday, so that might have something to do with it.

[steady pond]

yes

[odd fable]

I am currently charging a powerbank for L3H and when will upgrade the firmware on it!

[steady pond]

👍

will ping here when my node is back in action

[odd fable]

this is the setup lmao

[steady pond]

tiger is DAVS online right now

[tawdry grove]

Ive sent a few DMs to L3H but nothing got through. Also haven't picked up that node in a few days

[steady pond]

lmfao, your probably getting lots of loss in that long pigtail

[odd fable]

Yeah it hasn't been up since about saturday.

[tawdry grove]

In fact I haven't had much activity for a few days

[odd fable]

i know!

hard to buy a short one! they're constantly sold out!

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove

[steady pond]

yes

[odd fable]

I guess we should be glad, means people are getting into it.

frustrating though lol

[steady pond]

yh, but good to see the horsham mesh growing tho

[odd fable]

fr

[steady pond]

how old are you lol your talking like ur about 15

[odd fable]

I'm 26 lol

[steady pond]

ah fairs

[odd fable]

I'm talking like this cause I'm at work and typing quickly.

[steady pond]

yhyh makes sense

[odd fable]

I promise I'm very articulate and professional when I want to be

[steady pond]

same (i'm lying)

[tawdry grove]

Prices are creeping up too

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove is your heltec online

[tawdry grove]

Should be

[steady pond]

paradar?

[tawdry grove]

I just checked its online

[tawdry grove]

Yeah new paradar connected

[odd fable]

okay I'm gonna go in the loft and sort out L3H

[steady pond]

i just tried messaging you from Ratastic (mine is broken at the moment)

let me move my grandads node upstairs

ok not getting anything through @tawdry grove

i wonder if there is an issue this end

[odd fable]

L3H now upgraded to latest FW and in the loft.

don't DM it though, if you see it, because I haven't got my phone connected to it.

dm L3M

[tawdry grove]

I did wonder if I didn't install the new antenna correctly on Saturday. I thought I'd get loads more connections. But with it I did pick up L3H. So I think it's not my end

[steady pond]

i suspect it's this end because no activity for a couple of days

[odd fable]

oh bloody hell. I think L3H has turned off because the power bank didn't detect enough current 😭

okay will just have to wait until the good powerbank is charged again.

bare with. I'll let you know.

[tawdry grove]

Makes sense

[odd fable]

oooh I have a cell I could connect up to it actually.

oh but it's not charged

lmao

just gonna have to wait aren't I.

[tawdry grove]

Ive thought about putting one in the loft but don't want to connect it to the mains (I have a sockets up there) because I'm worried about a it sparking or something.

How long do you get off the power bank?

[odd fable]

unsure, not tested enough yet.

but as I say, powerbank is a problem because most of them cut out if they don't detect that something is pulling over a certain amount of current.

So touch and go whether it's going to work or not.

I think you'd be perfectly fine plugging it in, to be honest.

[tawdry grove]

Yeah. If I get a decent USB etc and give it enough space so it doesn't overheat

I leave my current one plugged in at home anyway, so not much difference if its in the loft

[odd fable]

L3H now once again theoretically operational!

[tawdry grove]

If the network is more settled and assured, I wouldn't feel like I need to keep checking on it either

[odd fable]

i can DM L3H from L3M so it's def working to some extent lol

[tawdry grove]

I think I've got a current connection with L3H but cannot see L3M. Shouldn't I "find" L3M through L3H?

[odd fable]

bruh

so you can see L3H?

but I can't see you?

yeah you definitely should be able to.

Are you running latest firmware?

[odd fable]

2.3.2 I'm running

[tawdry grove]

Last flashed about 2or 3Weeks ago

[odd fable]

Yeah that might be it then.

This is the same problem I was having at the weekend.

there's some weird incompatibility between 2.2 and 2.3, not entirely sure of the full list of consequences of this, but I've heard it's a bad time.

[tawdry grove]

Aah

[odd fable]

because you said you'd seen L3H before, right?

[tawdry grove]

That could explain a lot

[odd fable]

Hense you can see it now, but you can't see L3M because you've never seen it before.

We're making progress though!!

West Sussex boys gotta stick together!!!!!! 😎😎😎😎

[tawdry grove]

I'll flash it this afternoon

[odd fable]

Great

I'm just chuffed you can see me at all, lol

Good to know I'm definitely getting out

[tawdry grove]

For sure! I'm glad this is growing

Hmm About says I am on 2.3.2

[odd fable]

in the app?

[tawdry grove]

Yeah

[odd fable]

Your app might be 2.3.2 but firmware on board isn't?

[tawdry grove]

Aaah

[odd fable]

that happened to me.

[tawdry grove]

Do I just do the same process as when I first flashed? Nothing more technical

[odd fable]

yeah should be exactly the same.

It won't delete any of your settings or anything.

[tawdry grove]

I kept a screen shot of when i flashed and i selected 2.2.24

Last time

[odd fable]

Mhm

That was the previous version

[tawdry grove]

I'll upgrad

[odd fable]

perf

[tawdry grove]

So you got 2 nodes? One home and one out and about?

[odd fable]

Yeah!

my plan really was to use the one in the lofty as a repeater.

However now I know about the 3 hop limit I might not do that.

Might start using the web interface, although I can't seem to get that to work at the moment for some reason, and can't play with it since I'm supposed to be working from home rn and I'm on the work VPN lol

[tawdry grove]

Yeah. I just found a video online and set the basics. Got a bit lost on all that

[odd fable]

Yeah me too.

I've really enjoyed figuring it all out though.

[tawdry grove]

Same

[odd fable]

it's nice doing something that actually feels pretty genuinely new.

Well, relatively.

[tawdry grove]

Its got a grass roots feel to it

[odd fable]

For sure.

It's a shame it's not proper Free Open Source Software, but we take what we can get.

It's open source at least.

[tawdry grove]

I love the enthusiasm of the community. For basically sending text messages! Which is really old tech now

[odd fable]

Yeah

I kinda bought one on a whim, flashed it, didn't receive anything with the stock tiny antenna and gave up for a few weeks. But then I took it down to the coast with me (Portsmouth/Gosport area) and got looooads of nodes.

And even met up with someone else who was also sailing in the solent.

And I was like, this is awesome.

[tawdry grove]

Yeah I hear on the coast there's loads of activity

[odd fable]

Yeah

There's this like massive mega node called Frontera that soo much traffic goes through it's kinda permanently overwhelmed.

[tawdry grove]

Me and Mush were planning on getting good coverage over Horsham and then connecting Crawley

[odd fable]

But a lot of people are getting transmissions across from the Isle of Whight over to the mainland through it.

[odd fable]

That'd be awesome, I'll definitely help!

[tawdry grove]

Really??? Wow. Thats awesome

[odd fable]

I'm wondering if a nice beam in someone's loft pointed in that direction might do it.

Is there much activity in Crawley?

[steady pond]

no

[odd fable]

Well, lets hope there might be some day then lol

[steady pond]

yeah

[odd fable]

if we could get into crawley, that's almost to london.

[steady pond]

on the map there are 2 in crawley but never got anything to them

[odd fable]

Yeah I think I saw that too. Went over there and didn't pick anything up. Was on the shitty little stock antenna though.

[steady pond]

i had one or 2 in london before my node offed itself

[tawdry grove]

We've got the north and south downs to contend with

[odd fable]

True.

[steady pond]

forgot to let you know i got down to brighton

[odd fable]

someone needs to guerilla a node on top of red hill lmao

[tawdry grove]

Wth. How are you getting so many? Do you have the new firmware?

[tawdry grove]

How am I getting so little?!

[steady pond]

absolute legend called ROB M7RBF has a set of nodes called the voyagers (1,2,3) which seemed to be linking me to brighton and i was then hopping all over the place

[steady pond]

i had 78 before my node broke

[odd fable]

Woah, from here?

[steady pond]

i'm honestly not sure. i think i just had some good luck

[tawdry grove]

What do you need for it?

[steady pond]

little bit down south

7 minutes out of horsham by car

[steady pond]

heltec 😭😭😭

it's complicated but i'm buying a new one it's not worth the fix

[odd fable]

Nice

[steady pond]

i'm buying a RAK instead because they are better, just more expensive

basically this tiny little bit broke

[odd fable]

short across it lol

wait actually don't do that I can't tell what it is.

[tawdry grove]

Ah I thought you were north of Horsham for some reason. Might explain why you got more nodes

[steady pond]

not gonna work lol

it's a 32khz crystal osc according to the board schematic

[odd fable]

Yeah my instinct was that it was a cap but now I don't think so.

Lel

Don't short across it!!

[steady pond]

no

but it's a bit for the lora section of the board, so it's now retired to a little esp32 development board with a screen

not useless at least, just not for meshtastic now

[steady pond]

nope

just a bit north east of west grinstead

[odd fable]

A little way down the a24

[steady pond]

a281

[tawdry grove]

The weather conditions have been really varied too

[odd fable]

love the a24

[tawdry grove]

ok I've updated

Nothing really changing. I'll leave it an hour or so

[odd fable]

Damn

could you see L3H then?

[tawdry grove]

Its just the same list ive got

[odd fable]

Hmm

Dissapointing.

I guess from taht we can only assume that you -actually can't- see it rn.

Weather was really nice on Saturday, maybe that helped.

[steady pond]

have you done an rf line of sight between you

[odd fable]

dunno what you mean

[steady pond]

i'm not really sure how to explain it lol

@tawdry grove knows

"Line-of-sight refers to radio waves which travel directly in a line from the transmitting antenna to the receiving antenna, often also called direct-wave. It does not necessarily require a cleared sight path; at lower frequencies radio waves can pass through buildings, foliage and other obstructions."

from wikipedia

[odd fable]

I mean I know what Line of sight means, I just dunno how we'd test it.

I thoguht that's what you meant

[steady pond]

ah

look up scadascore line of sight tool

https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/

[odd fable]

seeems there's a big ol' hill in the way

(me just guessing his location vaguely. )

Are either of you guys ham radio?

[steady pond]

nope

[steady pond]

cowfold ish

still a hill in the way

[tawdry grove]

I might power up my node via power bank and go for a little walk later on this PM

I'm in Roffey, so I'll just head toward town and that'd increase chance of getting you

[odd fable]

Oh yeah you're like right there.

I used to live in roffey.

in Ringley Oak.

[tawdry grove]

what's happening with your Grandads though @steady pond I thought I should pick that up with the new antenna for sure

[steady pond]

he is out with it right now but i'm not sure

could be a hardware issue on this end considering we got ours from the same place and mine is broken

[tawdry grove]

Going for a stroll

I reached Ratastic again

I won't be on Discord until I'm back

[steady pond]

ok that's good

so we know the node isn't broken

[odd fable]

We made contact.

But not much dx

Where is ratastic?

[tawdry grove]

made it back. that was quite a walk. I've been a bit unwell and basically at home for 2 days, so didn't want to stop in the cold too long @odd fable

[tawdry grove]

Yes, neither mine nor Ratastic node is broken

[steady pond]

thumbs up

[odd fable]

I just went down the mini tesco and couldn't talk to L3H from there.

quite dissapointing.

[steady pond]

which one

the one by town

[odd fable]

the one at the roundabout

[steady pond]

wwait which one

[odd fable]

this one

oops

[steady pond]

lol

[odd fable]

"copied to clipboard" 🤔

https://maps.app.goo.gl/VZb5h16iCW7VCvsS7

[steady pond]

ahhh the one in roffey

ok

[odd fable]

Yeah I just rode up there and couldn't pick L3H or anything else up.

I'm starting to wonder if the antennas I bought are fake? How can you even tell.

[steady pond]

show the antennaws

and send the link you bought from

[odd fable]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274822069877

this one on L3M

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294388163459

this one on L3H

[steady pond]

no ideda

[tawdry grove]

I got you at about this @odd fable

[steady pond]

probably best to ask in #help or #antennas

[odd fable]

that's pretty depressing

[steady pond]

im just the case and board man

[odd fable]

or are my expectations too high, idk.

[steady pond]

i think it might be something to do with your antennas

[odd fable]

Yeah

[steady pond]

considering I can get 55+ miles with hops on a second story window with a little paradar antenna

[tawdry grove]

but, remember I initially got L3H at about 1.2km

[tawdry grove]

aren't we on the same Paradar antenna?

[odd fable]

well

that is true.

What're you using?

[tawdry grove]

https://paradar.co.uk/products/868mhz-5dbi-indoor-whip

[odd fable]

out of stock 😭

[tawdry grove]

@odd fable i have a shorter pigtail I can give you a small favour

[odd fable]

Ooh really?

I wonder if that'd help.

[tawdry grove]

yeah, just if we get more in stock owe me one back

[steady pond]

I have these, amazing antennas for their size

[tawdry grove]

they're some of the cheaper parts - but may make a difference with your home node

[odd fable]

Yeah okay cool.

[tawdry grove]

I mean, pigtail compared to an antenna is less expensive. not that i bought cheap pigtails

[steady pond]

yes

i guess my location and the nodes nearby are just a little bit more favourable

[odd fable]

you're saying are you saying you want to trade a pigtail for an antenna or a pigtail for a pigtail.

[tawdry grove]

you can have a pigtail 🙂

[odd fable]

awesome.

Now I just need to think what to do about the antenna situation

[steady pond]

ask in the help or antennas channel and see what people think

[tawdry grove]

I might be a bit busy over the last part of the week, catching up with work I missed whilst off. Might be able to get it to you at the weekend

[odd fable]

No rush at all.

[tawdry grove]

also, my node used 2% of my power bank. so that'd give about 50 hours on a full charge I guess

[odd fable]

Sounds about right

[tawdry grove]

it'd be too much of a faff going into the loft every 2 days to change it over

[odd fable]

Although those power bank percentage readouts are often misleading.

[tawdry grove]

If I get a second node running I might retire the original to the loft

not bad work for the evning though. We know nodes aren't broken. Its just range

[odd fable]

Quite

We have generated useful information.

[tawdry grove]

Why does

[odd fable]

what it do

[tawdry grove]

why does it now say I reached Ratastic 13d ago

[odd fable]

is ratastic running old fw?

[tawdry grove]

maybe. It was accurate on time after we were in and then out of range though. I got him at the beginning of my walk and then it said "1 h" when I was returning

[odd fable]

I think the last seen not being updated was one of the symptoms of the version diff

pure guessing though

[tawdry grove]

If your node stays accurate, we'll suspect fw

[steady pond]

pretty new

[odd fable]

it has to have been upgraded since saturday.

okay look

there's no easy way to say this.

look promise you won't laugh at me okay.

[steady pond]

oh dear

what have you done

[odd fable]

my antenna and the radio have been trying to do lesbianism.

this whole time.

[steady pond]

you have rpsma pigtails dont you

[odd fable]

I'm going to cry

I'm screaming.

[steady pond]

lmfao

absolutely amazing that you got even that range them 🤔

[odd fable]

this is probably one of the most embarassing things I've ever done.

[odd fable]

L3H might be correct.

I haven't been up there to check.

But I havea feeling it isn't.

jesus christ.

this is stupid even by my standards.

I thought I was getting a better signal on the stock little shit

bruuuvvv

https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/antennas/

I'm gonna get something from here.

These are the official reccomended ones.

I promise you I'm not stupid.

[steady pond]

yes

[odd fable]

I know what's happened.

my other pigtail is male

which I bought from a different seller.

and then when I got a second board, that came with a different pig tail.

and when I rebuilt my little hand held thing, I've just switched them without thinking about it.

but my little portable node.. has never had an antenna connected to it. The entire time I've been carrying it around.

I'm really curious if the one in the loft is right or wrong, now.

Okay the one in the loft is hetrosexual.

so it's either a bad antenna or bad loft.

or bad pig tail!

[steady pond]

got it

[tawdry grove]

Don't worry. I barely understand this stuff anyway😆

I'm getting both your nodes now

[tawdry grove]

So it had power, a pigtail but no antenna?

[odd fable]

yeah lol

[steady pond]

no basically his pigtail was the wrong type which means it looked like it was connected when it actyually wasnt

[odd fable]

Yeah

like I said.

they were lesbians.

[tawdry grove]

Oh I get what you did then!

So getting any range with just a pigtail was quite some luck. Also, could that have damaged the board? (Power no antenna)

[odd fable]

It's difficult to say..

I hope not..

But I somewhat doubt it.

It's so little power.

and not constant transmission

[steady pond]

I dont think so because its still got some form of resistant wire connected

the pigtail was acting as a mini antenna

[tawdry grove]

That's good then

[tawdry grove]

Somehow I got strong signal off both earlier in the evening. Now its gone

[odd fable]

Just picked up DAVS when I was at the tesco

[odd fable]

I'm listening to like

pirate FM broadcast (I think it's pirate at least)

they're playing like non-stop UK Garage on 108mhz

can only pick it up with radio placed on the floor, though. Probably because of grounding.

Fuck I love radio.

[steady pond]

lol

[odd fable]

helps that I like uk garage lol

[tawdry grove]

Got a brief connection with Rob M7RBF and produced loads of nodes. He sent a message on long fast

[tawdry grove]

Im getting loads of connections. All along the coast

@odd fable you getting anything?

[odd fable]

OH!

the conditions must be crazy or something?!

That's wild. I wonder what happened.

[tawdry grove]

Nice, you're getting it too. I think Rob is like a super node or something

Ive got 15 new nodes over the hour

[odd fable]

I can see CATM

my friends can see that from like, sutton area.

I desperatly wanna know what suddenly happened

[tawdry grove]

I dunno. Its not like the weather is massively different

Its quite jumbled though. I can't get a DM through to anyone. I can't even see your node directly

[odd fable]

can you DM it?

what's your one called again?

M7RBF isn't on any of the ham radio websites :<

[steady pond]

m7rbf owns the voyager nodes too

but what happens is he often goes up to the tops of hills like cissbury ring or chantonbury

places like that

[odd fable]

Oh mad

[steady pond]

and our nodes hop over the south downs

that's how all the south coast nodes came on

👍

[odd fable]

does that explain how I managed to pick up the Caterham node though.

although can't DM it

[steady pond]

oh yh btw basically everyone in this half of the country can see CATM

[odd fable]

i couldn't until today!

[steady pond]

it's so weird

[steady pond]

yeah it will come up when other nodes come up because it's hopping through

[odd fable]

Ah right

[steady pond]

but yh basically everyone in this half of the country gets it

CATM

[odd fable]

I wish trace route actually worked

or it could just show you number of hops in the UI. I've heard it does this in the apple version of the app

load more just came up lol

One of the nodes has just a car emoji for its name lol

[tawdry grove]

I got most of those too. Maybe Rob did head on a walk

[odd fable]

for the number of nodes, not really getting any DMs

any messages I mean

not DMs

[tawdry grove]

I think I'm gonna start putting together a second node.

@steady pond can you print me out one of your cases, can pay obvs

[odd fable]

like a base station one?

[tawdry grove]

Yeah I'll use the original as a base station in the loft

[steady pond]

one of mine or a bender

[odd fable]

You're into printing Mushy?

[steady pond]

yes lol

[odd fable]

Damn

[steady pond]

5+ years

[odd fable]

me too

[steady pond]

what printer

[tawdry grove]

Your model pls. I like its travelling design

[odd fable]

ender 5, old one before ender 5 pro. some upgrades to it though. different board and different extruder.

[steady pond]

I made some changes so let me show u the different versions and u lmk which one

[tawdry grove]

Nice !

[steady pond]

epic. I remember looking at those a few years ago (this was all before the new crappy creality stuff came out) but they were just so expensive.

[odd fable]

I got it really cheap in a black friday sale, I think.

[steady pond]

I run a BambuLab P1P now tho. Definate upgrade over the ender series.

[odd fable]

Fancy

[steady pond]

looking at this tho you have that tuned amazingly for an ender 5

[odd fable]

I did all silent drivers and stuff on it

[steady pond]

yeah

[odd fable]

I'm a little bit proud of this: I got a board from a friend for the ender 3, expecting it to have firmware for ender 5, lol

it didn't.

[steady pond]

lol

[odd fable]

So I was up till like 4am modding marlin for it.

[steady pond]

hilarious

[odd fable]

and now it has like hard coded swear words in the firmware cause I was so annoyed at the time.

[steady pond]

love that]

[odd fable]

It was during covid, I was printing face shields. Idk if it did any actual good for the world but it gave me something to do while I was furloughed.

[steady pond]

fair enough. The Bambulab is so different to any other printer ive ever used. SO SO easy to use. Just press print and it does EVERYTHING

amazing speed and quality too

[odd fable]

Yeah I can imagine tbh

Honestly

I'd kill just for auto bed leveling

[odd fable]

that's the worst part

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove that's the new design if you prefer it

[odd fable]

Oh I think I saw his on #enclosures-discussion when I was looking through. real nice.

is this your own design?

[steady pond]

pretty sure you can add it quite easily with a BL touch

[steady pond]

yes

i think i could do better but it's alright for a quick design

[odd fable]

You can. I actually bought one ages ago and never got around to installing it.

I think I've got a fake chinese BL touch though.

[odd fable]

Like a lot

[steady pond]

lol

thank u

it will be on printables soon so i will drop the link here when it is

[odd fable]

Very nice.

[steady pond]

also working on this one for a portable RAK node. will be fully enclosed IP6X at least

the blue is tpu btw

[odd fable]

Nice nice

I've never been able to do TPU for obvious reasons.

[steady pond]

i managed to get TPU going on an ender3 lol

if you try hard enough i'm sure you can

[odd fable]

hmm even with the tube?

I thought it was a no go

[steady pond]

well

the problem with bowden extenders is the tpu gets jammed and stuff

but it's possible

and if you convert it to direct drive then it works fine

[odd fable]

I considered going direct drive too but

so much expense just to print TPU

or at least it was when I looked into it.

Also I weirdly hate fiddling with things. I can do it, but I don't enjoy it.
It's like building computers. I know people who actually enjoy the process of building a computer. Personally, even though it's easy, I still hate doing it.

[steady pond]

i think there might be some designs you can print that let you just plonk the current extruder on top

[odd fable]

Hmm interesting.

[steady pond]

yeah but building a pc is also 10x cheaper 👍

[odd fable]

Lol

[sick mirage]

sus

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove ^^^^

[steady pond]

what

[sick mirage]

I came in here just to say this

[odd fable]

did you join just to say this

[sick mirage]

And I leave

[odd fable]

oh

great stuff bro

[steady pond]

👌

[odd fable]

it being called sus sex is quite funny i can't deny that.

[steady pond]

lmao i've never noticed that before

now i cant unsee it

[odd fable]

there's some twitter screenshot meme where someone is asking, quite politely, "excuse me but what is sus sexual?" thinking it's some new fangled sexuality.

I can't find the screenshot though.

[steady pond]

lol

where abouts in horsham are you

[odd fable]

u walked to my house didn't you

[steady pond]

no?

lol

[odd fable]

who did then

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove probably

[odd fable]

oh it was Tiger

[steady pond]

lol

are you in roffey

[odd fable]

nop

used to be

[steady pond]

are you nearer town centre

[odd fable]

here

ignore the home icon. That's where I used to live and didn't feel like telling google I moved

[steady pond]

lol

[steady pond]

ah ok

[odd fable]

Maybe you have seen me on my small motorbike. Maybe I have even cut you off in traffic.

[tawdry grove]

Yeah

More action from CATM

Picked up B2 Echo

[tawdry grove]

How much is a RAK board? What's better about it? I might go up a notch

[steady pond]

lol

the rak boards are about £30 from the rak website but they charge £20 for shipping.

there is a website run by xraymark that has them in stock occasionally for about £30 and £5 shipping

they are much better than the heltecs - they don't come with a screen (but it can be added) they are easily repairable because of their modularity, you can easily add stuff, and best of all insanely low power consumption

most people use RAKs for mobile nodes or solar nodes because of the low power consumption

[odd fable]

Is quite like one

If you ever see them in stock from that UK site lemme know.

Cause I can't afford to pay £50 for one lol

[steady pond]

well i'm thinking if enough people want one in our area we could organise a group buy - so everyone pays for their own device, but the shipping is then split between us

just checked they are 24.99USD each on their store

so 19.77GBP

then 22 dollars shipping

assuming we wanted 3 between us, that's £25.77 each total

if your both interested im up for it

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove @odd fable

[odd fable]

Hmm

And it's like a whole working kit, right?

[steady pond]

without battery yes

also in case you were concerned about me running off with your money i would buy all of them and then you would only pay once u get it

[odd fable]

Lol I wasn't that worried.

Let me get back to you tommorow, cause I have a friend that might be interested too.

Maybe two

As long as you don't mind floating the money, obviously. I won't ask them if they want one if you mind

[tawdry grove]

I might also have a friend interested

[odd fable]

How you doing @tardy isle

[steady pond]

yeah not problem

[odd fable]

Can you link me the board?

[steady pond]

https://store.rakwireless.com/products/wisblock-meshtastic-starter-kit

[odd fable]

Nice it looks like it takes those standard 4 pin oleds

I'd definitely like one, I'll let you know if friends want one tommorow

Bizarely they are both at the filming of some TV Show at the moment. The Last Leg, I think.

[tawdry grove]

That's actually a better price than the current Heltec v3 off either amazon or ebay. and i did read that the RAK has better power consumption. I've asked my mate if he wants one too

[odd fable]

are the modules easier to get in the UK?

By which I mean, is it only the starter kit that's, understandably, always sold out

[steady pond]

everything rak is a pain in the ass

[odd fable]

Yeah I've just been googling around

that seems to be the case.

[steady pond]

but the rak boards are basically better in every way

mainly power consumption

[odd fable]

Yeah

And if I wanted a display, those oleds are standard parts.

The only thing I might want down the line is a GPS module but tbh am I ever gonna use it without my phone? Probably not

[tawdry grove]

can either of you do that for me, add a screen?

[odd fable]

Yeah easy.

Well, it's easy as I currently understand it lol

I better check I'm right first.

[tawdry grove]

Yeah that's why i went Heltec

[tawdry grove]

I've got no idea at that level

I've asked my mate if he wants a second device too 😄 he's still not got his first one up yet though

[steady pond]

i can't float too much money lol

[tawdry grove]

But if he does, the cost of the RAK comes down even further, shipping wise

[steady pond]

yeah

[tawdry grove]

sorry, didnt think of that

I can transfer to you

[steady pond]

but at the moment i'm looking theoretically at floating £150 lol

[tawdry grove]

so we go halves or something. Have to keep a note somewhere, so things dont get overlooked

[steady pond]

yeah

[tawdry grove]

the thing is, once your shipping may as well get a bunch

lets wait to hear back from others if they do want it

[odd fable]

u could charge comission mushy.

You could become the UK's no 1 RAK vendor.

don't charge comission to us though, obviously.

[steady pond]

lmao

nah i'm not looking to make loads of money off this

[tawdry grove]

with my base node, is there a better antenna that I could look into off the paradar website? I could upgrade it

[steady pond]

if i do end up buying a few boards i will make sure to keep track of money and stuff because we don't want anyone overpaying etc

[steady pond]

get a fat 8dbi one or something

[tardy isle]

I'm in London but get some nodes further afield via CATM in Caterham, joined to see what else is happening in other areas near by

[odd fable]

I had a look and they have quite a few base station antennas on there but they're so expensive.

[steady pond]

i'm pretty sure your looking at about £80+ off the top of my head

[odd fable]

they might be worth the money though. But there's so much cheaper stuff on AliExpress. Problem is that you can't verify the stuff on ali is any good unless someone else has experience with it.

[odd fable]

truly a CATM moment

[tawdry grove]

most of the paradar antena (other than the one i got) say "hard outdoor use". i dont need that. Just a more beefy range on it, but it wont be used outdoors

[tawdry grove]

yeah, or there is that special box/tool that reads antenna "quality" but thats £50

[odd fable]

I was thinking getting a colinear and putting it in the loft. I'm really not sure how bad putting these things in the loft is,but don't have a lot of other choice.

[odd fable]

yeah. my mate has one but of course doesn't go up to 868 😭

[tardy isle]

The Hard outdoor use is just refering to it being weather resistant

I have a paradar outdoor in my loft space

[tawdry grove]

I dont really understand dBi - is it basically the higher hte number, the better range?

[odd fable]

I mean there's stuff on Aliexpress for literally £15

[tawdry grove]

my experience with aliexpress was so glitchy, i gave up

[steady pond]

called a NanoVNA if your interested

[odd fable]

you gotta fight through it.

[steady pond]

floodlights vs lasers

[odd fable]

aliexpress is a good place to buy weird stuff.

[tawdry grove]

what did you go for?

[steady pond]

low dbi is like a floodlight. will light a lot, but not very far. Higher dbi is like lasers. won't give you much coverage, but will go super far. @tawdry grove

[odd fable]

Is it actually in the loft?

do you get decent range on it?

[tardy isle]

Currently 8.5 but I'm going to try swapping for the 6.5

[tardy isle]

27 miles

[odd fable]

is that like real though

or with hops?

[tardy isle]

Direct to CATM

[odd fable]

Hmm

CATM feels like cheating

[tardy isle]

True

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove SWR is the number you're looking for. 1 is perfect swr, 2 is acceptable. the small paradars we have are about 1.2-1.4 swr

[tawdry grove]

what's that guy got then? to get such connection.

[tardy isle]

Height

[odd fable]

I think he's just really high up.

[steady pond]

i'm pretty sure CATM is a massive antenna too

[odd fable]

Height really trumps all.

[tawdry grove]

yeah. I've found myself checking for good locations as I'm walking around recently!

[odd fable]

https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005006109368869.html?

this one might be worth a look

it's from the same company that sells the little whip antennas that are reccomended in the meshtastic docs.

the worst thing is that you look at the comments and you can't tell whether the comenters are 915 or 868

then again the difference is what, like <2cm

I'm not sure how much difference that makes.

Surely some but

[tawdry grove]

https://paradar.co.uk/products/868mhz-hnt-lora-antenna-long-range-6-5dbi

what about that?

[odd fable]

Almost certainly good

I'm just skint

[tawdry grove]

for sure, its double the price of aliexpress

[odd fable]

Maybe next month

[tawdry grove]

its a long game project

[tardy isle]

Are you on the mpowered247 discord?

One of the mods on there bought a bulk box and is reselling for £25 + P&P or offers

[odd fable]

heck

[tardy isle]

I bought two from him

[tawdry grove]

can you link me to the correct channel?

[tardy isle]

https://discord.com/channels/1212551363742146581/1222927864123363390

[tawdry grove]

oh, dont have access

[odd fable]

It's a different server, yes?

[tardy isle]

Yes

[odd fable]

you'd have to invite us to the server then

[tardy isle]

https://discord.gg/dAe7kuQ4

That's their link from their website

[odd fable]

He doesn't actually list a price in that post.

[tawdry grove]

are you gonna message him?

[odd fable]

I think so

I'm just wondering how low to go in at :^)

[tawdry grove]

well I am interested in one at that price, so what you reckon a good price for 2?

[odd fable]

Yeah, good shout actually.

I could say £20 each?

[tawdry grove]

If @tardy isle bought for £25 + P&P we could ask for £45 for 2?

[tawdry grove]

yeah, start there 😄

[odd fable]

What'd you go up to?

Assuming you wanna go in together and split the postage

[tawdry grove]

no more than £25 if thats the going rate

[odd fable]

Yeah makes sense.

I'll see what he says

Occured to me that it's quarter to midnight though, lol

[tawdry grove]

looks like a lot of ppl are up and about on that channel. and ppl can turn off their message if they're sleeping

[odd fable]

Oh I'm not worried about waking him up, lol

[tawdry grove]

although I need to go to bed

[odd fable]

just we might not get a response till tommorow

[tawdry grove]

oh for sure

[steady pond]

this discord server is also they guy who sells the raks occasionally for £30

[odd fable]

this what I sent him

[odd fable]

Interesting he removed the price.

I wonder what price he got them for then if he's selling them so cheap 🤔

Maybe he just really wants to grow the mesh and he's doing charity.

[tawdry grove]

i wondered the same thing. although, if he bulk bought scores of them, might bring the cost down.

some people have a lot of spare money though! maybe he just wants to get the antenna out

[tardy isle]

I think he found the postage higher then expected, I paid £55 inc postage for 2, but he did say I could of made an offer

[odd fable]

Nice to imagine.

[odd fable]

Hmm

[tawdry grove]

ah, forgot postage will be an issue

[odd fable]

won't be thaaat bad

we'll see.

[tardy isle]

He sent mine via Royal Mail Special Delivery before 1pm

[odd fable]

bruh

I do not need special delivery before 1pm

[tardy isle]

The stamp says it cost him £12.75

[odd fable]

maybe this guy is just really bad at maths/ money

I remember when I was at school there was this well 'ard kid that used to sell drinks in the playground

and he used to sell them for less than he was buying them for.

and I tried to explain this to him once and he threatened to hit me.

wait

typing that out just made me realise

he was stealing them wasn't he.

[tawdry grove]

huh you might have just had the revelation of the evening!

[odd fable]

Lmao

[tawdry grove]

lol

what does that mean for our antenna guy then!?!?

[odd fable]

:o

fell off the back of a van!!

[tawdry grove]

right i need to head to bed

[odd fable]

Good idea

see you tommorow.

I'll let you know if that guy messages me

[tawdry grove]

nice

[steady pond]

just let me know soon who wants in on the RAKs

[tardy isle]

I kind of agree, but it looks like I've got LOS to him on the RF checker (he is about a 100 meters higher though), a few other people near me can't quite get a reliable connection to him I guess due to obstructions

[odd fable]

Yeah okay that's pretty fair lol

[tardy isle]

I'm also just out of range of the mesh Andy Kirby is on

[odd fable]

kinda worried tbh that no matter how good of an antenna I set up I still wouldn't get out very far

[tardy isle]

Although CATM has gone quite for me today, I'm hoping switching from 8.5dbi to 6.5dbi will expand my local range a bit

[odd fable]

feel like I'm in a bit of a dip here.

[odd fable]

I actually saw them earlier but I don't think it was direct.

[tardy isle]

CATM's mast is atleast 10m

[odd fable]

do you know it's exact coords?

[tardy isle]

He did tell me what it was but I've forgotten the exact

erm one sec

I use 51.282, -0.094 as an approx for CATM

Not sure if that's the real location but it's what he maps it as

[odd fable]

Hmm

[tardy isle]

Depending on where your antenna is each story of a house can be approx 2.5m

But you are just behind a dip on that line of sight

[odd fable]

doesn't make much diff

Yeah

[tardy isle]

The other tool thats good for mapping RF is https://www.ve2dbe.com/rmonline_s.asp

[odd fable]

crazy website

[tardy isle]

You have to make an account but it's free

[odd fable]

what does it do?

[tardy isle]

You create a "base", put your lat/long/evevation, then create a coverage or link (to another base) and it makes a colour coded signal strength map

[odd fable]

Oh nice

[tardy isle]

I copied these settings from somewhere

[odd fable]

I'll have a look tommorow

[tardy isle]

And it predicts coverage

It doesn't account for buildings in the way though, only ground height

[odd fable]

What I really desperately want to know is how much difference having the antenna in the loft makes.

[tardy isle]

It's an improvement, the best would be if you could have it outside, but I can't have an outside antenna

[odd fable]

Yeah me neither.

[tardy isle]

If there is a particular direction you want to focus most of your signal on then a Yagi antenna can help, they still give ok local signal in other directions too

For an omni antenna going too higher dbi will just flatten your signal into a disk, so you'll get range but at the expense of local signal

[steady pond]

i think for a mobile node 3-6dbi is a good range

[tawdry grove]

How much will it be if he does want one?

[steady pond]

Depends how many of us there are

But anywhere in the range of £20-£30

I’m probably ordering this morning so make your decisions guys

[tawdry grove]

Can you put me down for 2? I can transfer the money

[odd fable]

I definitely want at least one.

Lot of activity rn

Seems like there's a guy in a plane or helecopter

[steady pond]

Can we do cash instead

[odd fable]

Fine with me.

[steady pond]

@tawdry grove

Looking at 24.13 each but let’s just round to 25 for ease

gbp not usd

@tawdry grove cash fine?

[tawdry grove]

Yeah I prefer cash

[steady pond]

Ok. And you definitely want 2?

[tawdry grove]

Yes pls. When will you be in Horsham

I can hear a chopper!

[steady pond]

Well they won’t be here for about a week I don’t think

Hmmm

Probably Thursday 18th

[tawdry grove]

Okay. No.worries. didn't you need some money up front? Have you got enough

That guy in the sky just connected loads of people!

[odd fable]

Yeah lol

[steady pond]

If for some reason you guys go quiet these are in such high demand right now so I won’t have any problems shifting them elsewhere

Blimey

[odd fable]

Can you give me a little longer, mushy

[steady pond]

Ufhhh

Yeah

[odd fable]

I have one friend that might want one but he hasn't woken up yet!!

[steady pond]

Can’t really afford one more

If I get one more then import tax applies because the value exceeds 135

[odd fable]

Oh okay

Dw then

[steady pond]

Okay

[odd fable]

You got mine in there though right?

[steady pond]

Yep

[odd fable]

Okay cool.

[steady pond]

That’s 4. One for me, u and 2 for tiger

[tawdry grove]

My other mate didn't actually reply. I just assumed he would want one. But he's still on his first project. So I might have a spare, depending.

[odd fable]

Alright np

[steady pond]

So you want 2?

[tawdry grove]

Yes

[steady pond]

Okay. Will order by lunch time.

[tawdry grove]

Two in total for me.

[steady pond]

Yep

[odd fable]

The antenna guy never got back to me tiger. I guess there's still time

[steady pond]

Tiger - 2 (£50)
Lemonade - 1 (£25)

Yes?

Then 1 for me obviously

[tawdry grove]

Yeah

[steady pond]

@odd fable ??

[odd fable]

Yes!

[tawdry grove]

@odd fable do you have any pigtails on order? Looks like we'll need some more. I can probably still offer you to have one

[odd fable]

We need to make the exchange on a street corner in a way that makes it look like we're doing drugs.

[tawdry grove]

😆

[odd fable]

I do still need one however I think the antenna and pigtail I have on the loft node has the reverse genders of what everyone else is doing, because I bought them before I had meshtastic friends to steer me.

So right now if you gave me a pigtail I wouldn't be able to use it

But I have new antennas on order from China, and when those arrived I will need a different pigtail.

[tawdry grove]

Ok no worries! Mine were from China too and took about 10-12 days.

I have 2 left, but might now go to these two new RAK boards.

I'm happy to share them out though, to keep things moving. If needed

[odd fable]

I'll let you know when the whip antennas arrive

[tawdry grove]

I'll help my other mate get his first Heltec going

[odd fable]

If that dude gets back to vs about the paradars then we'll need entirely different pigtails lol

[tawdry grove]

Oh! I assumed they'd be the same

[odd fable]

No they have n-type connectors I think.

You can get ntype to sma adapters, but I've seen ipex pigtails so better to do that than introduce any additional loss.

But we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

[steady pond]

RAK say orders are dispatched within 8-14 days and then delivery is a couple of days so that’s the kind of time frame we are looking at. Still, cheaper than Heltecs at this point.

[odd fable]

Fr yeah

[tawdry grove]

@steady pond would it be possible to put that 6.5dBi antenna on the Bender case?

[steady pond]

no

the paradar one?

its n-type so you need a sma to n-type adaptor or an ipex to n-type pigtail

[tawdry grove]

But if I got the adaptor it could work?

[steady pond]

yes

change of plan

my card doesnt like the website so I might be able to make it work but if I cant then unforunately not much I can do sorry

[odd fable]

Oooh I can see ratastic

[odd fable]

Tiger said he's going redhill

I'm going to follow him like a stalker

[steady pond]

lol

[tawdry grove]

Huh?

[odd fable]

Someone said they were going to redhill.

I'm at redhill either way.

Wait is Tiger not Ratastic?

I'm up redhill not picking up anything.

Except catm obv

It's extremely windy

[steady pond]

check dms

@odd fable

[tardy isle]

It would be about half a meter long and very top heavy

[steady pond]

yeah you would need to mount the antenna and have the bender hanging from it 🤣

[steady pond]

any luck apart from CATM?

[odd fable]

Nah it was shite

[steady pond]

ah fair enough

[odd fable]

I think I'm just really limited my my antenna

[steady pond]

yeah

[odd fable]

Using the stock rubberduck

[steady pond]

ah that will be why then

[odd fable]

Mhm

[steady pond]

those are awful

[odd fable]

Got better ones on order.

[steady pond]

i honesttly cannot recommend the paradar 5dbi indoor enough

[odd fable]

Too expensive!!

I've ordered the ones from AliExpress that are reccomended on meshtastic docs.

[steady pond]

gizonts?

yeah they are supposed to be amazing but I dont like aliexpress

super bendy too

[odd fable]

Yeah

[odd fable]

I love AliExpress.

[steady pond]

iver just had a bad expericne with it

[odd fable]

I buy a lot of stuff on there. Probably more than I do Ebay or Amazon.

You start to sort of learn the vibes. I can't really explain it better than that.

You learn like, which deals are good and which deals are too good to be true. That sort of thing.

I'm not at home atm.

Will they sell out that quick?

[tawdry grove]

Did you sort that?

[tawdry grove]

Unconventional but workable?

I just wanna reuse my case and upgrade antenna

[steady pond]

yes

tiger check dms

@tawdry grove

[steady pond]

workkable yes. I find it unlikely it would stand up on its own tho. those antennas are very bigf

[tawdry grove]

I'd just mount the antenna to a loft beam

[steady pond]

yeah that would work