US - Connecticut.

[surreal sable]

My Primary Node will be partly off line for a bit while I increase the height...

hoping it won;t take long and will increase reliability

[surreal sable]

We are a bit higher now - let me know if it helps resolve any connectivity problems we were having the last week or so

[nimble vale]

@toxic shard thoughts on a node at pinnacle rock?

[toxic shard]

I’d like to make one happen, I’d be fair bit higher than my location and might bridge towards Berlin. But I’d need to be robust and long lasting given the inaccessibility. I’m working on something, but no eta.

[nimble vale]

because I have los to pinnacle which is blocking me from hitting your node

im working on getting something on talcott since I also has los to that peak

[toxic shard]

RAK solar case not so waterproof

[fierce moss]

Oh damn

[toxic shard]

Not sure if it was the gasket or the solar seal that's suspect. Node didn't seem to care but I'm going to dispose of the battery and relegate the boards to "around the house" use, I don't trust them for remote deployment now.

This was "fa46" Solardeck

[fierce moss]

I’d be doing the same

I’ve had no issues with the home made ones (TCC style builds)

I’ll do some trace routing tonight to your stuff Corey

Did you seal all your coax with the silicon tape?

A single drop of water in the coax will ruin everything

[calm dawn]

Saw something on "client_mute" mode... Seems like mobile clients and devices inside people's houses (looking at myself, here) should maybe use that mode to reduce issues on the mesh

[fierce moss]

Yes.

Mobile can be client

Other nodes around the home should be client mute

Keeps forwarding efficient

Don’t want packets running out of hops before they get out there

[calm dawn]

Right, and by similar logic... Need to be careful about devices in router mode. If the coverage isn't as good as someone thinks, it could cause issues by "capturing" traffic it shouldn't

I know it's been discussed, but seeing how the routing algorithm works makes it clear. Hopefully someone comes up with a better option than "prefer the weakest signal"

[toxic shard]

If this was to me, this node is entirely inside the box, the base board has PCB antennas. No external antenna or power connections

[toxic shard]

Took my "VOX" yagi down for the storm tomorrow and to make way for some yard work.

"SOL", my good antenna is sideways this weekend too while I work on it. Might be a bit quiet from Plainville for a few days

[surreal sable]

Seems like my connection to GAF has stabalized with the higher elevation of the antenna

[fierce moss]

Yea

Most traces are coming back

[fierce moss]

Bantam didn’t go through at 5:22pm

TRs to Bob all working through Corey

[steady solar]

Sad days, wonder why. Still up on the roof

[calm dawn]

Jankiness factor 10, but it works. New antenna on the router project, seems to be working well despite me being to lazy to get the ladder.

Solar panel was DOA, so just running off of the lipo battery I got, 3700 mAh and running for two days so far.

I assume Jared has the router at the Harwinton fair grounds down to be moved to it's new home, as I'm getting nodes father away

[fierce moss]

Nice! Get that coax down to like 2-3’ max and lmr/kmr400

I know it’s temporary:)

[calm dawn]

Yeah, I know. This coax is cheap and nasty. But works for the moment

[fierce moss]

Nice

[calm dawn]

Just taped together, very temporary 😆

[steady solar]

Looks like a production ready solution tbh 🤣

[steady solar]

Just changed my inside node to client_mute 👍

[toxic shard]

Every time I don't buy another node i feel like I should get a gold star

[fierce moss]

ha

[steady solar]

@toxic shard Pinnacle would connect you to Ellington and east Farmington/weha

[toxic shard]

Practically looking at my house 🙂

I’m just to the right of that car

The location is good. Challenge is getting a robust node in a place it won’t get messed with.

[steady solar]

I agree - @nimble vale and I are up here right now scouting 👀 we'd be happy to help install something

[toxic shard]

Deal. I’m thinking a node that can be hoisted into a tree with a small battery box at the bottom. That way we don’t need to account for solar.

[steady solar]

I'd think we would want solar so we don't have to keep re-upping batteries yeah?

[toxic shard]

But if you find somewhere “safe” with solar exposure I’m not against that either

[steady solar]

Ok cool we'll keep looking

[toxic shard]

I’d use enough battery to last 6 months.

[steady solar]

I don't hike half as much as I should 😅

[toxic shard]

Did you start from rt6 or from down below the cliff?

[steady solar]

Rt 6, went up rattlesnake and then over

[toxic shard]

I hear that’s the easier way. Lived on this hill 16 years, never been up there

They recently did a nice gate and some improvements to the bottom route. Seems popular with rock climbers

[fierce moss]

Yea. Anything without solar will be a weak spot in the mesh.

[steady solar]

Funny you say that, rock climbers here now

[fierce moss]

Is is state property?

Or MDC?

[toxic shard]

I think tilcon owns it

This is the highest spot in that area by my research https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZGX8PbuqezCqtd4v5?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

You can get higher if you go north, but then you shadow more of the area I care about.

[fierce moss]

Even like 5 hours of sun a day will keep a wisblock on forever.

Doesn’t need to be a perfect spot.

[toxic shard]

With the foliage and the hikers I figured finding a solar spot would be difficult.

[steady solar]

Yeah definitely want to keep it out of sight, people don't usually mess with things but you never know

[fierce moss]

Just email the owners. Or walk in and talk to him. Most owners are cool about that stuff. Especially when you explain it’s offgrid emergency comms. And 100mw.

[toxic shard]

Given all the hikers and whatnot, probably not worth asking imho. Just put it up, out of sight.

[fierce moss]

What are the gps chords? I’ve got OnX for property maps

[toxic shard]

The photo above was taken about here: 41°41'24.7"N 72°49'58.8"W

Weirdly that next chunk to the right/east is now listed as

NA... curious.

Pretty recent too.

If I was more involved in the town I'd probably know more.

@fierce moss thoughts on neightbor info interval?

[fierce moss]

only enable it on your base station. and i do 900 seconds

[toxic shard]

Yup, definitely base. Thanks for the advice.

[steady solar]

Agreed permission is important. Issue is this spot apparently kids go up to drink sometimes so definitely want to keep it out of sight since people can do silly things

Btw Gary (or anyone else) do you have a one pager for asking for permission? I feel like how I want to word it is a bit too technical or not totally covering meshtastic well enough.

[fierce moss]

I don’t. No

[void cape]

Just put it high up on a tree maybe?

Like, ladder high.

[fierce moss]

noone just happens to have a flat mount base hanging around i assume?

looking for solutions for chipanee

[toxic shard]

No, but i'd go in on one for chipanne

If it's this one, I'll buy it, if you can get the concrete blocks for ballast https://www.amazon.com/Non-Penetrating-Roof-Mount-72-Mast/dp/B019EA5S3U

(Or I could paypal you or whatever if you'd rather order it)

[fierce moss]

It is. I think it’s cheaper elsewhere. I saw it for $100 somewhere

[toxic shard]

Let me know what you want to do. That node will be super useful to me, so I'm all for backing it

[void cape]

I made something like that out of 2x4’s and lag screws for my “mobile” 2m antenna. Its 17 feet tall and should really just be mounted somewhere permanently

[surreal sable]

I’ll split the cost with you

[void cape]

Ignore the folded monopole random wire in the foreground; the homemade stand is in the background; basically a single 2x4 cut into four pieces and some lag screws plus two cinder blocks.

It’s in a plus pattern with a slight offset so that the screws are driven straight into the ends

[fierce moss]

https://www.solidsignal.com/easy-up-non-penetrating-roof-mount-with-96in-x-2in-od-mast-ez-np-96-200?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse&utm_term=EZ-NP-96-200&gad_source=4&gbraid=0AAAAAD_prKvnasrt-pU0C8KM53HRqEBIe&gclid=CjwKCAjwufq2BhAmEiwAnZqw8otqC1M_e8z5G5w9N8SpJvY30KCC3TYVq_pUu3InFPF8FvmpBJkBQRoCx34QAvD_BwE

$130 and would be perfect

[void cape]

Yeah, that contraption you have there looks way more professional.

Probably holds up better in the wind

[fierce moss]

If you want to use yours we can find a spot 🙂 but this is a country club. They see us taking that on the roof… lol

I think I’m already pushing it with this lol

[void cape]

Hah, nah I was more so suggesting a dirt cheap design

Not for this but rather a design in general for whatever test purposes you might want

[fierce moss]

Gotcha

[void cape]

I think it’s under $20 in materials

[fierce moss]

Well if anyone wants to help with this, it’d be appreciated. I’m in farm vet bill hell this month. Also, i suck at heights. If anyone is comfortable going up on roofs. It’s not super high or even pitched. My problem is trusting myself to get back down

[void cape]

I’m not a high places type of person either lol

[fierce moss]

Kinda need 2 people to pass that stuff up to and set it up anyways

[void cape]

Oh, that reminds me; I’m going to make a temporary HAS node on the hill since I haven’t ordered the parts yet. This weekend was unexpectedly busy

It’s just going to be the same radio wrapped around a tree or something like that for now

[fierce moss]

If @surreal sable or @toxic shard also aren’t height people I’ve got another guy i can abuse to do it with me lol

[void cape]

That would be up Tuesday evening

I don’t mind helping in general, and climbing a ladder is sometimes okay, but I have depth perception issues that really make me squirmish at greater than 4 feet. I don’t mind spotting a ladder though.

I ended up buying a new rail car for my fleet at the meet this weekend

[fierce moss]

neat

what scale?

[void cape]

Side note: there’s basically no nodes in the Saratoga Springs area nor Albany, however I met a ham up there and they are going to talk about setting up a mesh up there since they already have a decent repeater network.

[void cape]

1/8 scale; 7.25” gauge

There was interest in a net they had last week so they are going to be looking into it now

I might have an opportunity to install a node on Hosner Mountain in the Hudson valley that would cover hundreds of square miles of land.

[fierce moss]

ordered

[void cape]

That could potentially reach Albany, and we could be a hop away from Hosner Mountain if we find a good place to reach it and GAF in Ct

It would probably need to be somewhere near Kent

The node on Hosner Mountain would be easier to sell if it had a weather station connected to it

So I need a plan there

No particular rush on that node but it probably needs to be in place by end of November or it won’t be able to be installed because of deep snow

[fierce moss]

antenna base was $157.33 after shipping. @surreal sable @toxic shard
I got one that is about another 2' taller than the amazon one.

hopefully it gets here about the same time 2.5 gets released.. lol

ill make my goose hunting buddy go with me to install

[toxic shard]

Ok, sent my half

[surreal sable]

Definitely not a height guy - I’m good for about 6 feet off the ground

[fierce moss]

lol

i gotcha

it took me years to get comfortable in my tree stands. but with those you have solid places to hold on to at all times.

i told my buddy he has been recruited

and i should have patio blocks that will work

ill measure it when here

but ill get something

also going to get my base station node up in the next week or so

1 watt (i'll tune it down as needed to avoid being a megaphone) at 10dbi

should also help stabilize to harwinton

might even help to chipanee

figured since im so close to TFG that i should use a nice tight beam

[surreal sable]

You should have my half in Venmo

[fierce moss]

got it! ty

i'll be working on another solar node setup sometime next month so i have one ready to go if i get permission before winter

[calm dawn]

Most likely on/near the AT, as it rides the ridge along the hills in between

[toxic shard]

Is anyone here N1GUT?

[toxic shard]

@steady solar my friend in Downtown Hartford heard your message this weekend

[steady solar]

Nice!! That made its way from Pinnacle over. N1 is in Ellington I believe

[toxic shard]

I heard N1GUT in the last day or so, maybe a plane bounce

Yeah, I QRZed him too

[toxic shard]

He was shortname "F23C" if you happened to see his node

[steady solar]

Think he's got 2

[fierce moss]

i wish short names had 5 chars lol

i plan to have my base station mounted by next week sometime

[void cape]

@fierce moss Anything good from the new location of the HAS node?

I can reach AE1B from this location direct now.

It doesn’t need to hop via Corey to get up this way

I can’t seem to get a trace route to your GAF nodes or Bantam though

Signal seems good. I’m leaving this up here

Hopefully the solar panel is in a good spot

Not the best but probably better than before

Still need to order the proper stuff

[toxic shard]

N1 is in plainville, same guy as "U.N.I.T."

[steady solar]

Ahh got it, that's what I get for assuming

[calm dawn]

The positioning on Bantam Lake Router is juuuust a little bit off this morning

[steady solar]

Router? It doesnt have GPS 🤔

Nor do I share location via phone

[fierce moss]

You can manually give it a fixed position

That’s what i do

[steady solar]

Oh HAH my home node, I'm gonna do that. Brazil 😂

Not the router thank goodness, that would be odd ...

[fierce moss]

oooh. 10dbi antenna arrived....

oh wait no, thats part of the stand

neat

[tardy steeple]

Just got my node up in Stratford CT

[fierce moss]

nice

[toxic shard]

What kind of node you running @tardy steeple ?

[tardy steeple]

RAKwireless WisMesh Pocket

[toxic shard]

Nice node, make sure you do a full erase and flash, there's a bad set of them that have a borked bootloader. When using the web flasher, select your device, then your firmware version, then click the trash can icon and follow the instructions. It's very quick and you'd usually only need to do it once. It will erase your config settings, so you'll need to set up the node again after erasing.

If the default shortname was "718a" for example, it's borked. There may be others, best to be safe and start clean and fresh

[fierce moss]

2.5 may go beta release today

my buddy who im sending to the roof will be back from vacation in a week. as soon as he is, we can get the chipanee unit up

[toxic shard]

🎉

[tardy steeple]

I’m trying to design a case in Freecad and then after hours printing it don’t work. Kinda getting over it

[toxic shard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvc5BuLB5b0

[tardy steeple]

Just completed this

[fierce moss]

never expect prototype 1 to fit. ever. 2 if youn are lucky. ussually 3 🙂

[calm dawn]

What design software are you guys using to create the 3d prints?

[fierce moss]

depends on the complexity. Simple stuff, Tinkercad is king

Fusion360 also has a free personal license

for complex stuff

[void cape]

I use Fusion 360 but for not for profit work, onshape is really good

https://www.onshape.com/en/

[tardy steeple]

This thing arrived today

[toxic shard]

Nice, mine must be close then.

Hoping this will be my new daily driver when I know I'm around my area

[tardy steeple]

Can’t even get this up and going . Won’t connect at all .

[fierce moss]

wierd

only seen 1 video with those

no externat antenna correct?

[tardy steeple]

Correct all internal

[toxic shard]

I plugged mine in and it powered up. I saw it on BT but I didn't connect to it. I erased it, flashed 2.5.0.alpha on there

BLE connection via the web client worked

[fierce moss]

Nice

[toxic shard]

Seeing about 3 days battery life with the Heltec T114 with GPS and a 2200mAh battery

(that was charged to 100%, I think some data got cut off in the very beginning)

Going to try to tweak the GPS and screen settings to see if I can stretch that.

[toxic shard]

purdy

[void cape]

That battery really dropped off in the last few hours.

[toxic shard]

Looks motly like a typical LiPoly curve. Throw in some iffy-ness becasue of readings being every 15 min via the mesh and that's probably most of it

[void cape]

True

The ADC is probably not the highest quality either. The one on the ESP32 is absolutely garbage

[toxic shard]

My "CARD" node saw a bunch of stuff up your way overnight via the mesh

[void cape]

I think there was a plane because I was seeing a bunch of nodes again

[toxic shard]

I only saw the typical nodes, nothing weird

[void cape]

I was getting nodes from NYC again

[toxic shard]

I take that back, there were a few I don't recall: "Artful Dodger", "Forest Edge Highland Lakes Repeater", "ECO-Base"

[void cape]

From 10:30 to 11 or so

[toxic shard]

But I didn't get positions. Mine were about 1:45am

[void cape]

Those are in New Jersey

[toxic shard]

Plane then I guess

[void cape]

Once that node is up on Chippins Hill though, I think the HAS node is in a good location to get that

[calm dawn]

Without GPS mine has been going for a week on a 3700 mAh battery in client mode, with screen and default settings

[toxic shard]

Looks like Artful Dodger is up in Amherst MA

[toxic shard]

Card as expected is a bit weak signal. Hard to quantify, will need to feel it out more.

[void cape]

I’m buying a drone for ha’s and seeing if I can identify interesting LOS opportunities from that

[fierce moss]

They are nice to get vantage points.

I’ve got a dji mavic air 2

[calm dawn]

More supplies... And I just ordered some kds9700 thermostats that open the circuit at 0c to act as cutoffs for the solar panel.

[fierce moss]

I need to hit the hardware store for a 2" long pipe clamp and to replace the single bolt i sheared off, but its readyto go for probably next riday

up on the roof at chipanee

its being held by electrical tape atm lol. working...

[surreal sable]

Awesome

[toxic shard]

NICE!

If you get an idea of the time for the install, I usually work from home on Fridays and can likely be available for immediate testing

[fierce moss]

cool

itll def work for you. the question will be can it reach Torrington

even if it doesn't, it WILL

ill just figure it out

[void cape]

I might have some time around noon next Friday and I was thinking I could strap a small node to the drone and see if putting the node at the height of the telephone pole at the fair would do any good

(and, if not that height, how high lol)

[toxic shard]

Not a bad idea. If it works at a given height with a node small enough antenna to be on a drone, it would work at that height with a node with almost any antenna.

[fierce moss]

yea that's the only thing you cant test

8.5dbi at the drone height

i wish i could get more height at TFG

i may work on that

there IS a 40ft radio tower on our property and we dont currently charge them....

[toxic shard]

@fierce moss What solar panel do you like? The one TheCommsChannel links to, or something else?

[fierce moss]

TCC’s works great

Mounts well. Easy to trim the wire or you could use the barrel plug. Outputs what they claim.

[toxic shard]

I've got two kinds of panels, both look like the TCC one and i'm sure one of them is that one. Both have a USB A 5v regulated output, and a DC barrel jack. The DC barrel on one of them I tested as 7.2v open curcuit. Are you saying you use that? Or the 5v USB?

[void cape]

I went to the Hudson Valley and went up on a mountain that should’ve seen any nodes between the I-84 corridor, Poughkeepsie, and Newburgh, and got zero nodes

Those nodes that people carry on flights really find a lot of the ones that can’t see each other from topo, but there was literally nothing in that whole valley

Sent several test messages, no responses

[fierce moss]

i 100% use the USB connector

[toxic shard]

directly to the USB port on the wisblock?

[fierce moss]

i just cut it and solder in some in-line switches to the positives

i use 2 switches. one for the battery and one for the solar

so you can disconnect the antenna easily and safely

you dont want to have to pull out the tiny connectors

[toxic shard]

Obviously one can make their own, but I just got a batch of these because I get more done when I've got parts on hand https://www.adafruit.com/product/3064

[fierce moss]

ooh nice

solar and battery are different sizes

and if its in the sun, itll power the node

without battery connected

[toxic shard]

What 18650 holder are you using?

[fierce moss]

whatever collection of them i got off aliexpress. let me see

i just take some wire and run it behind, doing a single wrap around each connector, then solder them

works well

[toxic shard]

I hooked one of the nodes I've got which has the RAK "Green Power" board up to a 12v 10W panel, it juiced up fast

(that's a single 3500mAh 18650, nothing special)

[fierce moss]

nice

i figure with 4 of them, itll have 3-4 weeks of power, plus itll charge slower in the cold

and no need for undervoltage protection if you have a month buffer

if it dies, theres something else wrong. not just that'

[toxic shard]

I don't intend to use that node much right now, but I'm missing some SD16 coupler connectors I need to use that panel with the node I want ("SOL"). AliExpress will get them to me. I have half a mind to buy a few hundred and list them on ebay because the domestic availability is shit. I saw one guy selling what I needed for like $30 PER CONNECTOR, not that I imagine he's actually selling any

[fierce moss]

what do you need them for?

https://amzn.to/3MJ5soT

those are what i got

i just pair them into 4 batteries

use the same 3m adhesive to stick em together

they fit snugly. no need to glue or anything

oh. got this running again

ill be redoing it soon

with it's own subdomain, but for now...

[toxic shard]

I use them for external connections for solar panels and large batteries. Really just part of experimenting and making things modular.

[fierce moss]

gotcha

[toxic shard]

https://a.co/d/aNLiyAy

Bad price, but that’s what I’m talking about

[fierce moss]

https://meshinfo.wg4ry.com/next/nodes

there we go

got it running far better

and /next/ has the upcoming ui and darkmode

[toxic shard]

Anyone checked out MeshSense? https://affirmatech.com/meshsense

[steady solar]

That looks really cool, but it being closed source and a big ol purchase button on the top right doesn't give me great vibes 😕

[toxic shard]

They make some of the best ham radio software out there. They do it as a business. MeshSense is not charged for.

I own their full suite, money well spent.

[steady solar]

Would be great to run it on a server/as a docker container but looks like it's more client-based

let me know how it works out

As an aside, i compared the android meshtastic app with iphone last weekend and let me tell you, android is SO lacking it's disappointing.

Almost feels like it's a second class citizen hah

[toxic shard]

On the flip side, the Android app can use the network API, while the iOS project has a $25k bounty on that feature.

[steady solar]

Meaning it can't connect to devices on a network, only via BT? Oof

[toxic shard]

Yup only Bluetooth for the official app, and it’s got plenty of issues too. But the price is good.

[fierce moss]

looks very close to meshinfo

just a windows app

[fierce moss]

can someone within range of tfg generate some longfast traffic?

[steady solar]

That's a shame. I have a tbeam on my wifi that connects up lightning fast (esp32, wifi vs bt) and I can connect anywhere in my house obviously

[steady solar]

A little late but just did

[fierce moss]

Cool. It showed up on the website

https://meshinfo.wg4ry.com/next/nodes

Click to the chat page

Once it learns your nodeID it’ll fill that in too

[void cape]

Wonder if we should make a website like this: https://pvmesh.org/

[fierce moss]

if TFG can reach Chipanee once it's up on the building... i think we will see a lot more people

if not, we will need to work on finding a location in the middle of the two. but theoretically it's possible

[void cape]

HAS should see Chipanee.

[fierce moss]

i think theres a giant hill in the way

TFG is super close though

trees will be the issue

[calm dawn]

@fierce moss What are you using for the LOS elevations?

Sorry, that wasn't a reply to Ian lol

I installed MeshSense on my Linux workstation... seems useful. Way better than the Android app for looking at the mesh traffic and connections.

[fierce moss]

https://heywhatsthat.com/

yea i played with it too

it does look nice

that damn plane this morning screwed up the mapping though lol

[void cape]

Darn you, “mile of ledges” lol

[void cape]

Oooo, that looks really useful. I should try that tonight

[fierce moss]

it's ok. missing some key features, but it's neat

cant filter by node, remove nodes, no dedicated chat area, doesnt show long name in filtered chat... but metrics are neat

[toxic shard]

It seems to conduct traceroutes on its own from what I'm seeing. Like it periodically feels out the nodes it's hearing to see what paths there are

Like this, I didn't tell it to do this:

And I don't THINK this is typical node behavior, though I've not spent a lot of time watching logs

[toxic shard]

Preach! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htjwtnjQkkE

[fierce moss]

It definitely is doing it’s own TRa

Which i like

[toxic shard]

It does not show traffic unrelated to your node in the logs. Maybe this is a firmware thing, but if I trace from a different node it doesn't show up even though i'm sure my node is hearing both sides of the exchange. I wish it showed that, better still with more filtering options.

[fierce moss]

found some issues with meshsense

opened them in their git

neat software though

ill lock it down at some point, but since no-one except you fine folk know about the site...
https://meshsense.wg4ry.com/

got it running securely too

Meshinfo does a much better job parsing data from mqtt so far

[void cape]

It's very weird how unreliable it is to get my nodes to repeat to y'all.

Like, through Bill's node, you should most certainly hear mine but they don't even show on there.

And I tracerouted with dd_r_r1 and it responded to me, but GAF didn't hear it somehow.

I feel like someone came up with this battery capacity as a joke

I've got to say, the RAK's bluetooth is flaky as heck compared to the tbeam 1.1's

once my phone disconnects from it, the device never allows it to reconnect, even if I request it from the phone again.

it completely disappears from any bluetooth receiver in the area too

I can only fix it by resetting the device.

[fierce moss]

with a normal wisblock?

never had issues....

ive used android tablets, my macbook, iphone, etc.

[void cape]

yeah, normal wisblock

[fierce moss]

i just heard you

and responded

[void cape]

yeah, I sent that message about 20 minutes ago

I think it floated around on the nodes near me for a while.

[fierce moss]

do you have store and forward on or something?

that's strange

[void cape]

Not that I've configured

(I oriented the 900MHz antenna vertically up until this photo)

[fierce moss]

if you send out the word 'test" on LongFast, and the BBS hears you, itll auto respond

[void cape]

I haven't even heard that node yet..

it only heard some of yours a moment ago

It only sees GAF1 and GAF3

[fierce moss]

beaconing is only once an hour

so they probably mostly miss

hrmm

ill see if i cant get my 10dbi antenna on the barn this week

1 watt

[void cape]

GAF3 is coming in much better than GAF1

I can get GAF3 to give me a traceroute

Err nevermind

It got me GPS location

[fierce moss]

if one does, they all should

the weak link is between TFG and you

everything else here is close

[void cape]

I can't traceroute any of them yeah

[fierce moss]

just point a yagi straight at TFG lol

im also trying to figure out who owns one of the towers on our property up there

maybe get it higher eventually

[void cape]

The "strap a radio on a drone and try" plan is not going to plan at the moment.

In order to fly the drone with the radio, it goes over the weight limit which means I need FAA RID enabled.

I have to get the device that supports that and put that on the drone too

[fierce moss]

ehh, for a 10min test flight? lol

[void cape]

idk the app knows everything in dji

it'd probably ground my flight lol

[fierce moss]

it just yells at me if i go over the height

[void cape]

anyway, that stuff comes Wednesday. So I can't test when I'm at the fair on Tuesday.

[fierce moss]

ahh

[void cape]

But, should be set if I want to test Friday.

[fierce moss]

theres some firmware for a bunch of the drones that bypasses the nagging too

i havent tried it but i read about it

[void cape]

I'm not too worried about it. 95% of the time, I'm just going to fly around and take cool photos

[fierce moss]

yea

i bet you the app wont ground you

[void cape]

Lol.. unplugged the node and the battery was like "yeah, actually, I'm down here"

[fierce moss]

ha

[void cape]

for a lithium that I've had in the box since I bought it a year ago, I'll take it though.

looks like I had the foresight to put them to a good long-term voltage.

[fierce moss]

80% is where you want them

65-80

[void cape]

this is such a tiny battery, it probably would go through it in no-time.

I mean, how big is an 18650?

[fierce moss]

2,500 or 3k

[void cape]

yeah, this is like a tiny fraction of that.

420mAh.

1.5 watt-hours

The big 18650's are like 11 watt hours

[void cape]

yeah, no luck with traceroutes to GAF0

oh well

[fierce moss]

yea we will work on stability....

there's a chance that the HAS node up at 30' will be pretty solid.

[void cape]

dd_r_r1 should be just on the other side of Bull Pond there

GAF is probably on one of the hills in the upper right

Might be able to see towards roughly where Chipanee is from the south of the fairgrounds

This looks north; the firehouse is probably in center upper frame. The node I installed is on the little knoll to the center right of frame.

[surreal sable]

Fly a little south and I’ll go out and wave to you

Haha

[void cape]

I already left, I'm at home with the SD card lol

I was up there around 8:45 this morning before work

[calm dawn]

@void cape I see this a lot over the last 24 hours... It seems like DDB2 is acting as a central point in the mesh. You might need more height and/or a better antenna to make the fairground repeater work better as a repeater.

[void cape]

Yeah, I was thinking it was doing that based on the traces I’ve seen. I don’t think it sees GAF. I’m hoping it gives more coverage to the south though

The test on Friday is going to see at what altitude an antenna would help; potentially it just doesn’t help anything and I’ll just take the node down.

[calm dawn]

I'm not sure where I want to put this solar node I'm working on. I may do some tests at Johnnycake and my friends house down on Plymouth Rd.

Intuitively, I would have thought the coverage would be better from Johnnycake, but the models seem to disagree

[void cape]

I think Johnnycake has a good chance of connecting us to the Mass mesh in the pioneer valley

There’s a node north of Springfield that is on the top of one of the higher mountains in the area that may be able to see Johnnycake

[calm dawn]

Well, when I get the next batch of parts we can test... This $25 node is starting to add up to alot more lol

[void cape]

Hahaha yeah.

I spent perhaps 60$ on the equipment at HAS right now

Maybe more than that actually

Probably closer to $100

[calm dawn]

So, maybe I'll do both... I am really tempted at that coverage of Middletown to Vernon

I'll bet there are a few nodes out there we haven't heard yet

[void cape]

If a node is on that hill, they can hear clear up and down the CT river valley

There’s a node out there.. sec

That might be able to reach that node.. barely

[calm dawn]

Yeah, in theory, he's be in range of that sire on Plymouth Rd

site

but ironically, not Johnnycake

but simulations don't always equate to testing

[void cape]

Yeah

[calm dawn]

I've also been looking south... how can we link to greater waterbury... got to ba a few down there

[void cape]

I’ve very occasionally seen a node in the Ansonia area, but nothing in Waterbury

There’s a small mesh in Bridgeport

[calm dawn]

Now that would be a strech

stretch

I have three relatives around east mountain in Waterbury... possibilities for a realy site lol

[void cape]

Mhm

[fierce moss]

guh

i think my virtual nodes are all conflicting

it doesnt like that they are cloned VMs i dont think

been seeing crazy amounts of dropped packets

lemme see if i cant fix this....

yea... it did NOT like me making clones. screwed everything up

[void cape]

virtual machines will need different MAC addresses when cloning them.

otherwise they will conflict on the virtual bridge/macvtap/etc. that you are using to interface them with the physical network.

[toxic shard]

getting AliExpress orders in 8 or 9 days has me spoiled.

[fierce moss]

oh i know VMs very well lol

the problem was even on uninstall, meshtasticd was maintaining it's virtual portduino flash

so some random generated node info was being cloned, even on a full remove/re-add

all good now

[toxic shard]

@fierce moss do you know if text messages end up in the MQTT feed? I'm working on a little puzzle challenge for work and I'm not seeing text messages when I subscribe to the regular public MQTT server.

  24     portnum: ROUTING_APP
  31     portnum: POSITION_APP
 179     portnum: TELEMETRY_APP
 181     portnum: NODEINFO_APP
 989     portnum: MAP_REPORT_APP

So far I'm seeing those types

[toxic shard]

ok, finally saw one. Nevermind 🙂

[fierce moss]

so the public mqtt server has LOTS of limitations

i just avoid it

is there a reason you need to use it? do you need access to one?

[toxic shard]

Not sure yet, still noodling about what it is I'm trying to create. Probably not.

[fierce moss]

i should be putting up the main base station on the barn roof tomorrow

exciting times

looking forward to seeing how the 10dbi 1watt overlap helps

much of it is going to overlap with TFG, but it's a MUCH tighter beam

and ill get bristol up as soon as 2.5 lands

as i want to swap everything over to the new encryption

should make remote admin far more stable

im praying that one reaches back to TFG

itll open up the state

it def reaches you

[toxic shard]

Do you mean 2.5 lands in stable? It's already out in alpha

(not the tech test, alpha proper)

[fierce moss]

Stable beta will be good enough

It’s got issues atm still.

[void cape]

I had to take down the HAS node temporarily; they are actually removing a bunch of the trees here and so the tree the node was attached to is going away

[toxic shard]

RIP

[void cape]

Maybe later I’ll see if a node here still makes sense with the drone

I think it’s for the best since it really couldn’t reach GAF through said tree line

[toxic shard]

btw, not closed source https://github.com/Affirmatech/MeshSense

[steady solar]

Oooh nice!

[fierce moss]

yea, i actually spoke with the devekoper today

seems cool

[fierce moss]

can you do the cherrypicker and one of the 30ft poles?

[void cape]

They’re too busy setting up for the fair right now

[fierce moss]

ahh

[void cape]

I think that even if you set something up at the firehouse that it really doesn’t improve much

Johnnycake is where you want to be

[void cape]

This node in Plymouth would easily cover more than the fairgrounds does.

[fierce moss]

i wish the landing zone was still there

he would have let us put it up.

i dont know who owns any of it anymore

[void cape]

The airport on the county line?

[fierce moss]

yea

[calm dawn]

I was going to try at countryside

[void cape]

There’s a sports arena there too with a tall building.

[calm dawn]

The one issue I might have is finding a spot where the giant metal building doesn't block the signal path back to me lol

[void cape]

Yeah that was going to be my next comment

[calm dawn]

I'd try to get the sports center to host, but there is no way I'm going up to the peak

[toxic shard]

new version of meshsense (updates from within the app, no need to download again)

[tardy steeple]

What 18650 battery cells would yall recommend?

[fierce moss]

Base station up!

[void cape]

I buy the ones off Amazon and haven’t burned my house down - yet.

I think the ones I had were rebranded Samsung ones

[void cape]

Nice

[toxic shard]

I buy from https://www.18650batterystore.com/

I think these were my most recent buy https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/panasonic-ncr18650ga-ga6?variant=40563598000279

I like these protected ones and have orded them before, but they don't fit in all holders https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/epoch-18650-3500mah-10a-protected-button-top-battery?variant=41748328874135

[fierce moss]

i rip apart laptop batteries and then just do testing on them

[fierce moss]

yea im working with him

hes having issues with mqtt packets. hes testing on my server

[fierce moss]

base station hit bantam direct today

[toxic shard]

Nice.

[fierce moss]

so i think i can get permission to setup a node on the top of Ivy Mountain

this is direct LoS from there

thats still secondary to chipanee. thats my primary goal now

[toxic shard]

Very cool

[fierce moss]

I think I’m going to toss a 10dbi antenna on chipanee. There’s the slight chance that it’s too narrow for some closer eastern nodes, but it’ll give it a better chance of hitting Torrington

[toxic shard]

Good idea

[toxic shard]

@fierce moss any idea if a node would ACK a message on the public channel if sent on a different meshtastic LoRa frquency slot?

I set my node to use slot 22 in a test, expecting nobody else to be on that slot, and sent a test message that was then ACKed

[fierce moss]

No. Something was on it

[fierce moss]

There must be someone with a node on a skyscraper in NY. I’m (very unreliably) seeing direct packets to Harlem/Long Island from my base station lol

If they keep leaking in, I’ll block the node.

[toxic shard]

I think the ACK was from it going to MQTT, if I disable MQTT and do the off-slot message no ack

[fierce moss]

ahhh yes.

[toxic shard]

(this wasn't with the public mqqt)

[fierce moss]

If it’s a node directly on Mqtt

It will always ack

[toxic shard]

TIL

[calm dawn]

I see then too

[fierce moss]

Yea. They relayed all the way through

[calm dawn]

EMS0?

I show a direct connection 7 hours ago

[void cape]

Skyscrapers in NYC are not tall enough to do that. I think the curvature of the earth wins first.

Like, the mountain range between there and the Hudson Valley is at over 1,300 feet and the freedom tower (tallest building) is 1,776 feet. Much of CT around here is over 900 feet. It would be a stretch.

[fierce moss]

I’m at 1500’. If there’s no major mountains i should be able to do a skyscraper at 90 miles or so

I haven’t looked at what’s there

Dunno

[void cape]

90 miles would be quite the stretch

[fierce moss]

Yea. That’s like max according to ChatGPT’s math lol

[calm dawn]

could be tropospheric ducting?

[void cape]

It is technically possible, based on a story I heard from hamfest

[fierce moss]

Dunno. I’ll be blacklisting the node either way so we don’t have useless unstable nodes in the mesh

[void cape]

They had a microwave link tropospheric duct across the ocean in the NYC area and used it for a multi-hour television broadcast

Something like 60 miles through a fog layer

[toxic shard]

There was something crazy happening on 2 meters monday night like that

[fierce moss]

is BLR1 down or off the pole at the moment? connection seems sketchy

it does work sometimes though

[void cape]

So are you testing the node at Chipanee today?

[fierce moss]

No. Waiting for 2.5 beta

Should be soon

Also I’m swapping to a 10dbi omni

It’s in its way

Better chance of hitting TFG

[void cape]

Cool.

[calm dawn]

This hobby seems to be 90% waiting for more parts

[fierce moss]

Like 92%

[surreal sable]

Slow boat from china

[void cape]

I’ll take it over the normal ham radio “waiting for capital investment sufficient to buy equipment” although it is annoying

[fierce moss]

Ha

God i want a flex radio one day

Too many other critical projects

[toxic shard]

flex's not going anywhere 🙂

it'll be there when "one day" comes 🙂

mystery

Not all my nodes saw that, which is weird.

my web client seems to suggest it might be node !336653cc

anyone seen that before?

ahh, "Tom" K1TMM

[tardy steeple]

I have 5 devices and I never get a ack from anyone . At work , home , and I also set one up at a friends house .

[tardy steeple]

Where do you usually get stuff from ?

I’ve shopped on ali express
Rokland

[void cape]

Meshtastic B924? I’ve seen that one once

I saw it for a blip 3 days ago

I think there was a mesh in New Haven but I haven’t seen it come through in a while.

[tardy steeple]

Im in New Haven for work and milford for home .

[void cape]

Line of sight is important. You have hills/mountains to the north and the sound to the south; you probably could hear a bunch of stuff on the sound if it’s there.

Too far away to hear NYC nodes regularly

[tardy steeple]

B924 is about a 4 minute drive from me

If I set up my node MQTT will that help or no ?

I’m also looking into better antennas

[fierce moss]

we are doing our best to keep MQTT out of the mesh (as a form of cheating/bridging at least) if at all possible. Kinda defeats the purpose of an offgrid mesh. BUT we are making slow but steady progress reaching out

this is a rough map of the ideal; coverage today

This is after hopefully after we add bristol in a week or two

Play with this line of sight tool

https://heywhatsthat.com/

see if theres a spot that you can get that has linking coverage down your way and we can calculate out the next hop in your direction

that map is for clients at 6ft on the ground

so if you have a spot that looks close and you can get like 30ft of height, it may well work

There is theoretically a spot in prospect that I can hit....

no idea if it will really work yet

but if i can, i have permission

IF that node were to work out... this would be the coverage down south

its still a ways out from you, but it's closer

[toxic shard]

another new node

@tardy steeple also check your settings. If you're not on the normal channel slot you'll hear nothing from most users

If your Primary channel is the default, then the slot can be left at 0. If your primary is something custom and you're using a secondary channel to monitor public traffic, you'd need to ensure you're fixing it to slot 20

(zero means calculate it automatically from the channel name, which for the default primary channel is slot 20)

Also make sure you're region is set to US

[tardy steeple]

Looking at

https://pyrodrone.com/products/betafpv-moxon-v2-antenna-915mhz-1-pc

[toxic shard]

Haven't used one like that before, don't know anyone who has. I saw an Andy Kirby video about it, but I think he was having it in the wrong orientation so I'm not sure about the results. If you're using it mobile I'd get a more omnidirectional antenna.

Swear I saw it, but I can't find it now. Maybe he pulled it.

I'd start with these unless you've got a specific use case: https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/antennas/

Or anything for 915mhz on Rokland, but be careful with RP-SMA vs SMA

If looking at SWR graphs, the default meshtastic frequency is more specifically 906.875mhz, so a dip closer to there is better, but usually if it's an actual 915mhz antenna that'll do nicely.

[void cape]

Huh.

So I forgot to reattach the antenna on the LoRA module when I took the HAS node down, it’s been on without the antenna on transmitting for days.. I guess it doesn’t manage to damage the transmitter in these radios.. at least the t beam 1.1

[surreal sable]

Doh

[tardy steeple]

Oooo man

[void cape]

Well, it probably didn’t do too much interesting but it may have been heard a bit further than usual. I sent up my RAK node to 375 feet above my house.

(Finally got remote ID and the license to fly it with additional weight for the radio)

No GPS on this RAK but maybe later I can find how high it was.

I took off the Bluetooth antenna too to save weight.

Yeah, nothing new heard me direct

[fierce moss]

theres so little watage that it doesnt hurt it much

leaving the antenna off

ive done it too for a few hours

no harm done

[tardy steeple]

I ruined a wouxun radio doing that

[fierce moss]

sure but that wasnt 100mw

i need a drm radio at some point

my mobile and my only fancy HT are yaesu

which are great, but CT isnt a YSF state

[void cape]

I have a Yaesu in my car and I’m not the only one based on APRS data

I have DMR and never use it.

[fierce moss]

yea i run APRS while i drive too

i think i need to update my callsign in it now that i think about it....

ooph yea lol.

just checked aprs.fi

one of the next poles im putting up on the barn will be an APRS igate/repeater

we have nothing near us

[void cape]

Yeah that’d be awesome.

I was thinking about colocating the node with an APRS digipeater but turns out I don’t have anywhere to do it lol

Fairgrounds probably isn’t a great place to do it turns out. Just not great range

[fierce moss]

it's not horrible, just not a lot of LoS anywhere north

50watt on the barn will easily cover all your area though

rough/conservative estimate

probably more than that. i tossed in a 6dbi loss

on 50w

[void cape]

That’s pretty solid coverage

[toxic shard]

I’ve got a digipeater running here,

Uhhgg, the worst feeling is knowing you bought something (or 10 somethings) and not being able to find them, because you know it’s your own damn fault

[calm dawn]

I had to pack up my office a few years ago, in a hurry. That included the shack. It's mostly still in boxes and I have no idea where some if it is...

[fierce moss]

yea the NW corner is wierdly underserved for aprs. i ussually connect all the way to woodbury

[void cape]

I haven’t looked at my message paths recently. I think there is one digipeater that gets some of the area.

[steady solar]

Hey sorry just saw this now, nope it's very much still up there and stable on my end

Which should technically be my next hop from my router to you? TF&G router? @fierce moss

Just ran a traceroute no issue

[toxic shard]

My SOL node is back up on a pole outside.

[toxic shard]

How have you connected them in parallel? They don’t seem connected on the set I just got. Did you just solder jumpers between the connectors?

[fierce moss]

Take a wire, strip it bare for the length of the connectors plus a little extra, and twist a tight loop at the end to the first one. Solder it in place, then keep it tight and just do one loop around each terminal.

Solder each

Easy and comes out clean.

I measure it so tue red/black plastic is on the end that piles up into the box for connecting.

[toxic shard]

Nice, thanks for the tips.

BTW saw your truck node from here at 3pm

(2 hops)

[fierce moss]

Neat

[fierce moss]

What path?

[tardy steeple]

I never see any nodes out of the Fairfield county area

[toxic shard]

Not sure what path, I was away from the house when my home node saw it

[toxic shard]

That card node is my "Daily Driver" right now. Antenna isn't great, but it's nice to have with me all the time and usually i've got a better node in the mesh in range to feed the card with messages

Unfortunately it didn't get hopped to JW+ which is what MeshSense was connected to. If it had been, it might have tried to trace and we'd have more data.

[tardy steeple]

I might be on that list . I’m right next to birdseye repeater and Stratford center

[toxic shard]

I would be surprised to hear Stratford, though I do have a pretty good line of site to the south/southwest.

I'd figured that was a plane bounce

I wrangled two people in West Hartford into Meshtastic. One is mostly humoring me and is in a bit of a hollow (short name "WeHa"). The other is a big proper nerd who I think will dive in the deep end (short name "CFEX" for his linux pi node). He's got a bit better location, but he's fiddling so it might be up or down a bit. But he'll be uplinking to the mesh map

[toxic shard]

This is that straford node btw

[fierce moss]

cool

does it fall under the chipanee predicted coverage area?

[toxic shard]

Not sure

Nope

We'd need a node around here to bridge that part of westhartford to Chipanne

There's a ham a little down the road from there, but not in the right spot himself

And if my experience is anything, he's probably SK already

[fierce moss]

yea... it's nuts. you look on the registration map and see like 100 hams in say torrington

and like 75% are SK

the median age for this is like 85 lol

[void cape]

I know a dude on Delay Road in Harwinton runs some US-wide nets from time to time recently. There’s also someone over on the east end of Torrington with a big crank up HF tower

[void cape]

The antenna that comes with the RAK nodes is absolutely garbage

I had another node in the house actually relay to it it was so bad

[toxic shard]

you mean the little PCB one? Or the newer tiny plastic one?

I've only used the PCB one and was surprised by it. Not that it's "good", but that it has no right to be as "not bad" as it was

On a different topic, one of my nodes stopped beaconing mid-day, so that's a mystery to resolve later. It had loads of power, just... gone. I can see it on my webcam, it's still physically there.

[tardy steeple]

Rak has a few antenna options . Is it a possibility that they shipped you antenna tuned to the wrong frequency?

[steady solar]

The Bluetooth antenna that comes with the raks are honestly impressive, I'm amazed at the range on those little guys

[void cape]

It’s the chiptena, not the proper SMA one

[tardy steeple]

Mine word better then the heltec v3 issued ones

[fierce moss]

Yea the ble antenna is good

[toxic shard]

I got a bunch extra of each just to have on hand

[toxic shard]

Anyone gotten a name on this node?

[tardy steeple]

I just spent like 300$ on ali express oops

[toxic shard]

Showing direct to one of my not great nodes, gotta be in the plainville area.

[hoary oxide]

Big proper nerd here (which is too generous).

Catching up on this channel. My stuff will be better on Friday hopefully - I should have an antenna mounted by then - not particularly high (about 10ft up on a shed), but better than my current tiny antenna. Using a pi zero 2 with the waveshare Lora hat, powered by POE. If this goes well (it’s my first radio project!), will look into making it better.

I also have another pi in the box running ads-b receivers. Very curious about the airplane meshtastic nodes you guys were discussing a month ago.

Happy I found this - looking forward to learning from you all.

[steady solar]

That's exciting stuff! Glad to have another in the mesh 😄

I actually run an ads-b feeder myself on a home server, pretty fun stuff. Running it in docker alongside tar1090 and planefence

[fierce moss]

welcome!

[toxic shard]

Glad I wasn't more colorful in my description 🙂

Code, the three big things we're sort of fussing over in this channel right now are putting a node up at Chipanne Golf Club in Bristol, which should bridge Gary's infra with mine in Plainville, and Jared is working to get a better spot at the Harwinton Fairgrounds for a node, and me and some others are mulling a node on Pinacle Rock near my house to bridge over that and towards Berlin and some of West Hartford.

I think Code has a spot with family for a better positioned node that'll cover some good area in the West Hartford / Hartford range, but the exact extent.

It's all very adhoc and just for fun, figuring out line of sight, fussing over hardware, lamenting our wallets, you know, the classic notes.

I'm also working to get a good node set up in southern Bristol. Not going to be an ideal spot, but it'll be helpful. Might pick up more stuff in Southington.

[nimble vale]

Welcome! My Farmington node should be able to see yours once it’s up

[void cape]

I took down the fairgrounds node and I’m not sure it’s going to go back up because I don’t think it’s in a great location.

It seemed like a good idea but it has too many obstacles in key places

[tardy steeple]

I have a device ( tbeam ) completely frozen . Non responsive on all three buttons and Bluetooth won’t connect .

Any ideas?

[void cape]

Dead battery?

[fierce moss]

disconnect the battery. discharge it, hold dfu mode button, turn back on and reflash with full eeprom erase

[tardy steeple]

I can’t even get the battery out . I messaged the person who assembled the device and asked if they used any adhesives

[fierce moss]

cant pry it with a knife?

(do it on the negative end)

the biggest thing is getting the battery out

then you can discharge it and re-flash it only on USB power

the batteries ARE tight.

i built two of them.

a knife works though

[tardy steeple]

I worked at a vape shop for 2 years I don’t wanna touch anything metal to the cell . I’ve seen these go off and it’s not fun.

The entire cell is negative except the tip

[fierce moss]

correct, but that tip's outer ring is negative under it's little O-Ring protector paper

thats why i say never to pry from the top

[void cape]

I usually use a spudger, it’s literally made for this sort of thing. Common in cell phone repair kits.

The two blue plastic things there

[tardy steeple]

When I get home I’ll use the plastic pry tools . I over slept and im on mh way out the door .

[tardy steeple]

The maker said he uses double sided tape to further secure them . I’m gonna have to figure this out

[void cape]

If you can use a spudger to isolate the circuit, you don’t really need to remove the battery. Just enough to part the contacts from one another

[toxic shard]

The plastic from a clam shell protective case could work well to slip in and break the contact

If you do assemble it again, put a ribbon under the better so you've got something to pull on to get it out later.

[tardy steeple]

Computer won’t find the device with both a battery and without . Tried everything. Think it’s dead

[toxic shard]

Try another cable before giving up

[tardy steeple]

It is not responsive . I’ve tried 3 different cords . I’ve also tried two different computers plugged in and also just a wall brick as well .

[toxic shard]

That's a t-beam surpreme right?

I recall those having a second USB port, maybe for the bootloader or debugging or something. Maybe read up on that and see if there's something to try there

[tardy steeple]

I messaged lilygo . At this point right now the device is just non operational.

Tried 3 different battery
Tried numerous different cords

Tried the operation button , tried reset .

Tried leaving it unplugged .

Nothing

[toxic shard]

:=(

[fierce moss]

That sucks. Have other nodes?

[tardy steeple]

Seeed tracker , wismesh pocket , 2x heltec v3

[tardy steeple]

The t beam IMO got the farthest reach and hit the most satellites via gps

[fierce moss]

id agree with that

i have 2

the work really well

[nimble vale]

funny enough I used to live there, altough the metacomet trail goes through that spot so it is accessible for a tree node

[fierce moss]

Who owns the property?

[nimble vale]

metro district

[toxic shard]

Looks like Chipannee has a possible shot at my mom's condo in Rocky Hill

[fierce moss]

Wow

[toxic shard]

Not getting hopes up I could make it work with something I'd actually be able to leave there. Condos and all that. But we'll see what works.

[toxic shard]

@tardy steeple your battery is backwards

Red should be on the right side, closest to the USB port

[tardy steeple]

Have to check it when I get home . It was working when I left to go to the grocery tho

[toxic shard]

you can see the "+" on the right side of the JST jack. Not sure how it could have been working unless the wire colors are reversed too.

[nimble vale]

give the board a sniff, smell burnt?

[tardy steeple]

Only way it fits in is how I took the photo

[nimble vale]

are the wires connected to the battery correctly?

[tardy steeple]

It’s correct. The wires are crossed at the battery because it’s easier than potentially breaking the JST plug. The black is positive and red is negative

I actually have to solder that cable to the battery, so I just do it based on the JST connector and not the colors. The RAK wouldn’t power up and will blow the power circuit if it was wrong

[toxic shard]

I would not do that

Red should always be positive.

[tardy steeple]

Yeah, I don’t know why RAK did that. Every other board manufacturer follows the spec and keying for the connector. They switched it which means that every battery has to be re-wired or re-pinned. I solder new cables because the stock ones are way too thin for my preference, so I just fix it there

[toxic shard]

I haven't had to re-wire any batteries.

[tardy steeple]

What batteries do you use ?

[toxic shard]

I use these a lot https://store.rokland.com/products/makerfocus-flat-3-7v-3000mah-rechargeable-lithium-polymer-11-1wh-battery-with-jst-type-ph-2-0-plug?variant=41379793207379

[nimble vale]

I use those as well

[toxic shard]

Or these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B7N2T1TD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

I don't think there is a "standard" for JST PH polarity, just certain manufactures swing one way, others the opposite.

I'd at least put some red and black heat shrink that matches the expected color scheme. Or even some electrical tape, something so you know in the future this black is positive

I also use this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C2HNNNGZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's a chonker

Fits well in the lid of this RAKBox-B4 enclosure, though I don't think I'll use them much more after this build

[tardy steeple]

I normally use 18650s however I’ve been having issues where the housings are mislabeled + and - and also they were series and not parallel .

These are my 1st goes at these cells

This is how they are “ normally “ the new connectors I got are a little thicker and the red and black are reversed

[fierce moss]

18650s. i ordered a bunch of connector wires for both solar and the batteries on aliexpress and they were the right polarity

the 18650 connectors i linked in here earlier work perfect. they wire up super easy and fit snugly into the cases so theres no need to glue them

[void cape]

I’ve ordered JST connectors off Amazon that were the wrong way before. It does happen

There is a standard for this and the RAK modules are correct to my knowledge. At least, the ones I bought are

It’s supposed to be Pin 1 is Ground and Pin 2 is positive.

https://www.jst-mfg.com/product/pdf/eng/eXH.pdf

Hahahahaha wow this is funny

Their data sheet has pin 1 on the right of the connector with the key facing the person reading the data sheet

In that respect, the pinout of the RAK is reversed I guess

[toxic shard]

Rak says they’re PH not XH, not sure if that matters

[void cape]

Ah let me check

[toxic shard]

I get a lot of stuff from Adafruit too and they have it like rak https://www.adafruit.com/product/4714

[void cape]

Still the same

Yeah, my batteries are from Adafruit.

[tardy steeple]

I forgot what YouTube guy that was cutting the wires and soldering the same way. I’m doing as well.

[void cape]

I had some that came the wrong way and I popped them out of the JST connector to correct it

[fierce moss]

new?

@here if you are on any 2.5+ alpha at the moment, make sure that under Config/Lora settings, to enable "OK TO MQTT"

and that "Ignore MQTT" is disabled

[tardy steeple]

Found this on ebay . He’s right in CT .

[toxic shard]

Yup, new to me. first seen 7:45am today

[toxic shard]

What does an ignore mqtt do? Seemed disabled by default.

[tardy steeple]

I personally avoid any alpha . Just me tho .

[fierce moss]

itll ignore/stop forwarding mqtt tagged packets

both need to be set, but the OK TO MQTT is the bigger deal. itll break all the bots/map reporting/etc

and its off by default

[tardy steeple]

Not sure if anyone here uses those devices

[fierce moss]

I saw that discussion in the alpha channel.

[tardy steeple]

I’m looking into getting a new node

[toxic shard]

That’s what I was saying.

[tardy steeple]

All my connectors are the way I took the photo .

[fierce moss]

i wonder if the one you had backwards was the solar side?

that would be somewhat insulated from blowing it up via the charge controller

[tardy steeple]

They are all wired up and connected properly just all my connectors have reverse polarity.

I just inspected all my connectors and all 10 packs of 10 are the same .

[fierce moss]

ahh ok

[fierce moss]

should be closish to a 2.5 beta

also, IF chippens doesnt connect

i think i have a differetn spot on TFG property that may work

and give slightly better coverage all around

might fully stabilize to harwinton too

[tardy steeple]

I found out why my t-beam died

[fierce moss]

what happened

[calm dawn]

Bummer, it's a cool little unit otherwise. I just ordered a RAK to replace it in my router project until they figure it out.

[tardy steeple]

I got wismesh pocket and you can’t use any additional modules or anything due to the integrated OLED

[tardy steeple]

The person is using the old 3D prints and lilygo said it bent the board

In both photos the one that’s broke is on top.

You can see the case doesn’t seal flush because of it

[fierce moss]

oh damn

[void cape]

You could probably fix that by reflowing the solder as long as it didn’t lift anything.

[fierce moss]

If it’s not a trace. Could work

[void cape]

Usually bending the board just breaks the joints, particularly cold solder joints. Especially common from China fabs.

I’ve fixed many of those cheap flash drives for people by hitting them with a heat gun and then having “flash drive tea” by boiling the boards in hot water to remove the flux.

[tardy steeple]

Speaking of flash drives I wish they had a node that was a flash drive . Would be really convenient and low profile

[toxic shard]

Plug them into any usb port you find and expand the mesh, I like it

[void cape]

You could probably get a USB to USB C for the RAK node and 3D print a case around the whole thing.

[toxic shard]

Put together a new rak based node using the Layerfab Sentinel case kit. Uses an 18650 and has a physical switch.

https://www.layerfab.com/products/sentinel-rak-wisblock-rak4631-00327

Case snaps together but it’s not quite ideal because it’s difficult to get back apart without cracking the “wings”. Also didn’t fit a protected button top 18650

[tardy steeple]

Nothing is really designed for button top

[surreal sable]

I have printed a bunch of cases from https://www.printables.com/@TonyG - They have been working pretty well

[fierce moss]

I have a printer if ever needed. I’ve just printed my own

I still love these for the tbeams

Can’t wait for 2.5 final so i can toss the node at chippanee

Also, i got ahold of the tower owner at TFG. going to see if i can get the TFG node up to 40’

It’ll drastically improve coverage.

[toxic shard]

Noice

I did a little testing around parts of plainville today with mixed results. Gotta play around some more.

[tardy steeple]

I just use https://www.printables.com/@AlleyCat

[fierce moss]

my tdeck are hers

[tardy steeple]

I haven’t been in plainville in about 16 years

[frank skiff]

i think i recall reading that you folks with the mesh around litchfield are trying to link up to the pioneer valley mesh in MA at some point. am i remembering that right?

[toxic shard]

I think that’s been mused about, not sure there’s a plan yet

[frank skiff]

gotcha. was just curious. i just drove up to this motor lodge high up on a hill in florida ma, was able to see nodes in their mesh from there. maybe once i get an outdoor node built i'll see if i can get it up somewhere on that property. nice 50km+ link

[fierce moss]

I’m the one in goshen (bordering Litchfield)

Main two routers are at the top of TFG and my farm. Both at ~1500’. Also putting one in Bristol soon.

We don’t have anyone in Litchfield itself, but we do have another user in bantam that can hit my routers. And several people in Harrington (they are in here)

I had spoken to someone on the pioneer valley mesh, but we have some serious mountains between us.

@frank skiff

[frank skiff]

speaking of serious mountains. i am thinking i'll take a node up to the summit of mt greylock (3,491 feet elevation) and see how far it can see from up there.

[fierce moss]

I know my routers currently cover parts of Litchfield, Morris, Harrington, goshen, Torrington, etc.

Hoping soon include Bristol, Plainville, etc out that way.

There’s some estimated coverage maps above in the chat

[fierce moss]

That’s quite a ways up there. Solid elevation though. I wonder if that has line of sight to the peak of Mohawk Mountain

I’d love to get a node up there, but that spot is crazily regulated. I have feelers out though

[frank skiff]

yeah, being DCR property that will happen. i'm not sure if you know that there is a radio tower on the summit, and that is owned by an NPR station, WAMC out of new york

only other chance would maybe be to see if the folks running bascom lodge might allow a node to be put on the building

does not seem that it has line of sight to mohawk mountain. it does however with santanoni peak in new york 111 miles away (!!)

mt everett seems to be the closest peak it has LOS to

[fierce moss]

yea ive driven up there a few times.

https://meshsense.wg4ry.com/

thatll show the most common nodes

theres a few we need to toss static locations in that done show up on the map. everyone here has like 10 nodes at their house lol

the bristol one i think will add like a dozen more users

there seems to be a bunch out Unwin's way that it could link up

[surreal sable]

At least - haha

[fierce moss]

https://meshinfo.wg4ry.com/map.html

thats another scraper i have setup. shows more nodes that it's picked up. mostly via planes

[toxic shard]

Anyone seen !08d4de5e before?

[fierce moss]

doesnt look like it

[tardy steeple]

Negative

[fierce moss]

nope. not in any logs

[fierce moss]

going to setup a VM just for compiling meshtastic

[void cape]

Bill and I live across the street from one another which makes the Harwinton area quite signal dense.

[fierce moss]

yea

i mean we dont come near spots in the UK that have like 100 people with 10 nodes each all in the same city lol

or some spots in like california

[tardy steeple]

Eastern Tennessee is great on the mesh

[toxic shard]

noice

[steady solar]

So don't want to burst your bubble but this may be misleading. I shut off location telemetry on that node.... weeks ago, and I was driving through Bristol and Plainville today with that node. Sorry 😦

[toxic shard]

😭

[steady solar]

I hate how location just shows as last known even though I want it to be off 😦

[toxic shard]

According to my screenshot you're still sending position packets

"POSITION_APP"

Might need to turn it off on the channnel too

[hoary oxide]

Anyone know this node? I finally got a larger antenna hooked up (still only 10 feet off ground level here), picked up this one today.

looks like it's down near UConn Hospital?

[steady solar]

Yes! That's @nimble vale

how exciting

[hoary oxide]

nice - it's been steady since the antenna went up.

[nimble vale]

https://tenor.com/view/doggo-henlo-fren-fren-dog-smile-dog-gif-17984668

You must be close then my node is still indoors

[hoary oxide]

i'm in West Hartford - Farmington Ave halfway between the center and mountain rd.

[steady solar]

@toxic shard just reset my default channel, guess that should do the trick

Didn't realize there was a separate setting, thank you

[fierce moss]

@hoary oxide theres a decent chance, depending where on farmington ave, that chipanee will reach you

it has clear LoS to a lot of that area

though theres a little hump after that red stops

[nimble vale]

they are farther east on farmington ave

[fierce moss]

Still may hit someone that’ll link them

[hoary oxide]

I'm east of Avon Mountain, which is my main problem getting to all of you west.

[nimble vale]

my Plan A for a talcott node doesnt seem like its going to work out so I will be on plan B soon

[hoary oxide]

that's awesome. I was just poking at the map - Deercliff Rd up in a tree or a roof seems like it might work well. We almost bought a house up there instead of in WH, this has been the first time I've regretted that choice 🙂

That pin is at 41.791667 N 72.802778 W

[nimble vale]

Plan C is hiding it in a tree

[fierce moss]

Ha

Trying to avoid that….
Don’t want the entire reliability/stability of the mesh to be dependent on a landowner not finding it

[tardy steeple]

Anyone see this ?

[fierce moss]

They’ve had like 2 waves of preorders. No SMA connector though so only a shitty internal pcb antenna

That’s why i didn’t grab one

[tardy steeple]

ipex to sma possible ?

[fierce moss]

Yup. But the pro has a case

[toxic shard]

Haven't heard of a T-Deck Pro. They've been selling a new T-Deck Plus

[fierce moss]

Oh maybe the plus is what i saw.

Same thing holds unless it’s got an sma connector lol

I need to be able to hold it up and pretend I’m getting better reception.

[nimble vale]

How am I supposed to look cool without an antenna?

[toxic shard]

I don't need it, but I want it: https://www.l-com.com/Images/Downloadables/Datasheets/ds_HG908P-SM.pdf

[fierce moss]

not bad. a little broader on the front than a yagi. but still pretty directional

[tardy steeple]

Anyone in here ?

[toxic shard]

@steady solar again

[steady solar]

No more location?

[toxic shard]

Not me, the message above

I haven't heard you again since to see if no position, will keep an eye out though

[steady solar]

Oh sorry, in Bridgeport rn with my mobile node and have very poor service hah

[toxic shard]

hehe

I just got off a call with a friend from Florida who has a home in western NC and wants to get some nodes for his community

[tardy steeple]

I’m grabbing food on east Main in bpt lol

[hoary oxide]

Saw two new (to me) nodes on my main node:

RAK WisBlock 4631      - 3529390243  - !d25e38a3
LILYGO T-LoRa V2.1-1.6 - 2441878672  - !918c1c90

the WisBlock was temporarily available, but the T-LoRa node has been popping up every so often.

No location on either.

What's interesting is that the WisBlock node has a short name WeHa, so imagine it's in/around town somewhere.

[void cape]

The RAK’s don’t come with GPS by default

[hoary oxide]

Oh right I keep forgetting that GPS isn’t guaranteed.

[void cape]

You have to buy the GPS module

I kinda see this as a benefit because they draw low power and have less weight as a result; I can install a node on my drone as a result and that works great

[toxic shard]

most people would use their phone's GPS rather than putting one on the radio

[void cape]

I think I need to use a better antenna though

[hoary oxide]

Yes that’s what I do for my travel node at the moment.