US - Connecticut.

[potent ravine]

I see nodes down in Bridgeport/Stratford on my map. Someone's got the MVP

[void cape]

The regulations are a bit varied but what matters in this particular situation is 1W max power leaving the transmitter and 4W max EIRP.

[toxic shard]

Have you found any conciece reference for that?

[void cape]

That’s @surreal sable

[void cape]

Still trying to find it. I think it’s in part 15 but I wasn’t getting an SEO link for it from Google for the FCC ECFR

https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/oct07/Oct_07-Basics_of_Unlicensed_Trans-JD.pdf

It’s not regulation but it does help direct

[toxic shard]

Appreciate you digging up links 🙂

[fierce moss]

Are you in-range of any of us?

[fierce moss]

BS1 really likes to wander lol

[rare mulch]

Hoping to get in range, but even with this 10db antenna on the 3rd floor i dont get anything more than the DD node. It looks like you have something on Chippens hill but it has not beaconed or at least I have not received anything. That said this is currently just hanging out on my desk not in an ideal location. Just getting started so more playtime to come!

[toxic shard]

Sounds like a challenging spot 🙂

@fierce moss are you forwarding to Liam yet? My stuff has dropped off the map

nevermind, JW+ was "Reconnecting"

kicked it

😕

[rare mulch]

yes

should it be showing up? I dont see it

I assume it needs to be sent over the LoRa network to register, haven't made contact with the mesh yet.

[potent ravine]

@severe quest you just came up as a new node seen

[fierce moss]

the node died?

[toxic shard]

no, it just gets stuck "Reconnecting" to wifi

[fierce moss]

oh

wierd. it's a supreme?

[toxic shard]

Maybe over thanksgiving I'll get a pi node together and be done with esp32 wifi

Yeah, it's a T-Beam Supreme and the IP is about 7 feet away in the same room.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[fierce moss]

yea. dunno. mine wasnt stable till it was like 1' away lol

[fierce moss]

Gotcha!
Once we get you pointing to any of routers or other folk's base station's you'll be good to go and can drop off mqtt.
Mind sharing your address? we can look at your line of sight

[tardy steeple]

Same thing with my tbeam with ublox however my l76k doesn’t do that

I did end up installing a WiFi extender and it’s literally right next to the t-beam .

[fierce moss]

bringing base station down for a storage migration

shouldnt affect anything

[tardy steeple]

Think I might pull my t beam and set up my Rakwireless on mqtt

[craggy vigil]

Started decorating the Christmas Tree 😉 From left to right - Holley Jolley Node and Seeed Pod.

[fierce moss]

ha

[void cape]

No wonder we’ve surpassed the number of nodes on the mesh map compared to the NYC metro area. We’re decorating trees with them

Just think - this portion of Connecticut has more public nodes than the entire country of Ireland at this point.

[fierce moss]

ha

yea... i need to find a good yagi to put at TFG

and someone willing to climb the pole

going to research this week

[toxic shard]

@rare mulch When I got into work today in Bristol the node here had received your "Test from Bristol #3" on ConnNet, FYI

Heh, the new version of Meshsense has a "Set Position" option, that's handy

[toxic shard]

d940 and HILL both lost their positions recently, which is odd. They'd both been set fixed. Both are Station G2's, though I don't suspect that matters

[fierce moss]

ive had static positions lost both on updates and when submitting other gps options.

i just save my cli commands now

in a secure note

[hoary oxide]

hey folks - now that we have the MQTT bridge between nodes, I see 4 router nodes showing up on the list.

No concerns, but want to learn/understand - which nodes are you flipping to that config, and any strategies to consider?

[toxic shard]

"router" is really just an RF thing

[fierce moss]

router means that it re-transmits with priority over a client

a timing thing

but generally you only want a node to have a router designation if it is way up on a mountain and covers a huge amount of area

[toxic shard]

Like Chippanee

[fierce moss]

Chipanee and TF&G are both in prime locations

[toxic shard]

My SOL router is on the border, I may make it Client next time I bring it down

[fierce moss]

things still relay over clients. but the Hop Count is maximized when only nodes that should be routers are set to router

[hoary oxide]

ok - got it. Makes sense.

[hoary oxide]

yeah, yours was one I was a little surprised about. if I can get CFTR up on the roof, might be a candidate unless someone gets a hartford rooftop.

[fierce moss]

if everyone sets to routers, it screws up the mesh efficiency

[hoary oxide]

yeah, that's why I was asking. the docs have a warning about it:

Avoid ROUTERand REPEATER

Using ROUTER or REPEATER roles unnecessarily can cause serious network issues:

Increased risk of packet collision.
Reduced message delivery rates.
Decreased effective network range due to unnecessary hop consumption.
These roles are for very specific applications. Before changing from CLIENT, carefully review the documentation to understand the implications. Additionally, coordinating this with your local community to ensure its impact is a positive one rather than a negative one.

Remember: A network of CLIENT nodes with a small number of well-placed ROUTERS is usually the most efficient and stable configuration.

[fierce moss]

rooftops are generally not prime locations. unless you are a solo house at the peak of a mountain

the larger the mesh, the more efficient the mesh needs to be

we have a good group of guys here though. everyone working together

[hoary oxide]

it's a bigger building on top of a one of the higher points in WH, but definitely not a mountain.

won't make any changes without discussing here.

[fierce moss]

shoot the gps point over. we could look at it

check surrounding LoS

[hoary oxide]

It's not as high as Chipanee - this is an estimated height. The buildings there are multistory condos or a medical/long-term care building. https://www.heywhatsthat.com/?view=NKSWEJHE

it's currently on a second floor balcony facing west, blocked by the building itself on the east and north. So, it's current position can't tell us much.

[toxic shard]

that's pretty hot

[hoary oxide]

I would need to talk to the condo committee, probably would need a contractor to put a small mast up to satisfy their needs. It would be a process...

Hartford would be better. I'm always surprised there's not much east of the river, that would be a better spot.

[toxic shard]

120' AGL seems optimistic

[fierce moss]

just stress the important wording.
Solar Powered, Small Node, Public Emergency Communications

[toxic shard]

Tell them you'll fix their printer

[fierce moss]

lol

[hoary oxide]

yes, agree. I will get a better estimate. Ceilings are high, 4 floors plus a garage. If I can get up there, can get a real GPS fix.

[toxic shard]

👍

[fierce moss]

if we can get something towards the top of avon mountain eventually, itll relay to that

[hoary oxide]

yeah, that would ideal. Both of my fixed nodes should be able to see it, have good views west / northwest

[void cape]

I’ve mentioned it before but if anyone knows someone at the Talcott Mountain Science Center, that would be a fantastic place for a node.

It has clear line of sight to Johnnycake mountain in Burlington and possibly further

[toxic shard]

Just sharing because I think it's cool:

(this is from the perspective of d940)

BRHN is Zing

[fierce moss]

Hell yea chiponee

That spot was a win

[steady solar]

Big time

At this rate we might want to up our max hops number heh

[nimble vale]

Stupid rattlesnake blocking me from all these nodes 😒

[potent ravine]

I may be able to get that done

Any high tower location you can think of in CT. (Besides rattlesnake) i can probably get a node up on

[fierce moss]

Do you work for a utility company?

[potent ravine]

Communication company

Two-way radio

That's why I offered The Hartford to you guys if you can make me a solar node. Because I can get up there

We also lease tower space on deer cliff in Avon

[nimble vale]

Birch mountain tower?

I’ll make a node if you can get deercliff, I live right by that

[potent ravine]

One of them

Ill have to ask El Hefe how far up I can put them. But it'll definitely be better than ground level

[fierce moss]

You don’t happen to have access to the tower in Torrington ?

That would feed so much….

[potent ravine]

On highland ave.. yes

[fierce moss]

Really?

[potent ravine]

Yeah

[fierce moss]

That would 100% link Bristol and Torrington

[potent ravine]

We manage all the public safety towers in Torrington

[fierce moss]

I could just give you the TFG node we already have up

Wouldn’t need to swap to a yagi at that height

[potent ravine]

Yeah if i can just give it to the climbers and tell them where to put it. That would be ideal

[fierce moss]

Absolutely

What kind of mount would it need?

[potent ravine]

U-bolt

I also have a friend in Harwinton with a 120ft tower. If you need a hop

[fierce moss]

Hell that might be all we need. Have the position?

I’ll do the LOS stuff.

[potent ravine]

41.7756877, -73.0548864

[fierce moss]

I have mine at 1500’ at the top of Torrington fish and game.

And another on my barn at 1475

[potent ravine]

So you know Joel?

[fierce moss]

The harwinton tower might be perfect. I’ll look

[potent ravine]

Hes got the GMRS repeater up there

Or HAD

[fierce moss]

Yea

[potent ravine]

This tower in Harwinton is where is other machine was

[potent ravine]

That doesnt seem very enthusiastic!

[fierce moss]

lol. Sorry. My 2 year old is vying for my attention

[potent ravine]

I hear that. I got a 5 year old and a two year old

[fierce moss]

This is game changing lol. Should fix our link problem easily.

My barn has LOS probably to both towers.

[potent ravine]

Let me see if he's got any climbers coming before winter

[fierce moss]

that would be harwinton at 100'

a little less than i was thinking. but i see why it's there.

[tardy steeple]

What would be a better node to get up in the air G2 or a Rak ? Other ?

[fierce moss]

Rak. it would need to be solar

[tardy steeple]

Didn’t think of that ( solar )

[fierce moss]

yea. highland ave would perfectly hit chipanee

100' or more would do it

that tower looks super tall over there. not sure what it is

but yea. that would solve our main backhaul problem

and give more overall coverage

thats at 100'. it would add about 20% more coverage than TFG alone.
For that, i'll hapilly build a new node

[rare mulch]

ok. on the mesh!
lesson learned:
915mhz does not compete well with 2.5gbps switch. do not put your node and antenna right next to networking equipment.

[fierce moss]

It shouldn’t do too much. A lot of people put their esp32 nodes literally right next to their access points for stability.

Never had an issue

What kind of node?

[rare mulch]

heltec v3. Moved it across the room and literally a huge list popped up.

[steady solar]

Could you do Talcott mtn by chance? That would be huge coverage.

[steady solar]

Well you also have a lot more than just 2.5gbe going on in that house 😂

[rare mulch]

true.

[rare mulch]

you have incoming 915mhz signals

[potent ravine]

Probably not. I know someone who had a repeater up there. But that's pretty locked down by the state

[steady solar]

Which one? I've got a few nodes active around here 👀

[rare mulch]

BLBS

[steady solar]

Dang. Worth a shot!

[steady solar]

Hmmm got nothing. Traceroute also failed. Are you still using one of the stock antennas or you got a new one in?

[rare mulch]

perhaps it had something to do with the tbeam not being reset.

i'll have to clear my list and let it try again.

[tardy steeple]

Don't let this distract you from the fact that Hector is gonna be running 3 Honda Civic's with spoon engines. On top of that he just came into Harry's and ordered 3 t66 turbo's with NOS and a Motec System Exhaust.

[real axle]

what device are you using?

[toxic shard]

That was a station g2 on my side and a rak4631 on the router at chippanee

Location location location

[steady solar]

@fierce moss 500 error to your meshsense, just a heads up

[fierce moss]

ty

ahh it ran updates

im going to update the meshsense virtual node later tonight too

[fierce moss]

upgraded

[steady solar]

Anyone know who 662b is? Ran a traceroute last night and usually the route goes out my roof node, but somehow got routed through 662b instead.

[fierce moss]

Dunno

[toxic shard]

662b is the Bantam Lake Router

So I think it lost its name

(or the node doing the trace lost its name from its db)

[steady solar]

LOL you're right. I message it from another node and I get 662b, but on my list of nodes it has the right name. The heck?

So I guess the trace did go out the way that I expected...

[toxic shard]

I don't know why they lose their names sometimes.

[potent ravine]

I guess I'm the only node in Danbury lol

[steady solar]

Hmmm I've definitely seen more in the area before

[fierce moss]

something on the highland ave tower def will hit a few spots in danbury. likely other tower locations

Im buying some more parts for another node for the tower today

[tardy steeple]

A littler smaller then what I ordered …

[fierce moss]

The width is most important. To hold the 18650s and holders

[tardy steeple]

That’s suppose be be 14” tall and 12”wide

I got maybe a 6” tall and 3” wide

Def can’t do anything with this . My poe splitter won’t even fit

[fierce moss]

yea, return it

you want...

https://amzn.to/4eNElV6

7.9 * 3.9 * 2.8(200×100×70mm)

and dont do the seethrough lid

theres no reason to expose everything to unneeded UV

@potent ravine know what size U-Bolt for the torrington tower? im grabbing parts.

[potent ravine]

Grab a 2in

[fierce moss]

ok

im going to make this one a bit more foolproof/resiliant. as it's def not as accessible

i already have a spare 8.5dbi omni antenna for it.

[toxic shard]

🤤

Updated the WE1SPN ham shack node in Bristol. Nothing special, but if you see it that's one of mine

[tardy steeple]

You think this can come in handy to press a reset button?

[tardy steeple]

My t beam keeps disconnecting and won’t come back online unless reset button is pushed . Kinda getting annoying

[toxic shard]

https://store.rokland.com/pages/black-friday-2024

[nimble vale]

You might need two in case you gotta reset the switch bot

[toxic shard]

heh, my t-beam supreme at home seems to be needing a reset.

[tardy steeple]

I’m about to yeet mine

[void cape]

I've seen one node in that area before: fcec

My t-beams never need reset - maybe it's a recent firmware issue?

I'm still on 2.5.4

[toxic shard]

Are they doing wifi?

[void cape]

No.

[toxic shard]

That's what I'm referring to

[void cape]

Ahhh

The ESP12's and ESP32's are AWFUL WiFi devices.

[tardy steeple]

v2.5.9.936260f

[void cape]

Not only do they have shit range, they also suffer from an undocumented TX limiter that artificially limits 2.4GHz airtime.

After hitting this limit, it completely disconnects from the network and doesn't take any more packets for several minutes.

[tardy steeple]

Mines a dollar bill ( 6’’) away from
Access point

[void cape]

I spent hours debugging a high-bandwidth WiFi project I had with my SDR and discovered that there's a limit on the TX duty cycle in the firmware.

I was so angry I switched over to a raw FSK ISM band radio for my project.

Which did not have said RF duty cycle limitations.

[fierce moss]

Tenderloins

[tardy steeple]

iPod video 5.5

I’m wondering i can wire up a node inside

[fierce moss]

Ha

Anyone near Glastonbury?

https://www.facebook.com/share/19N9J5MByK/?mibextid=79PoIi

[void cape]

Mmmmm

[steady solar]

That's such a great idea! I have a 5g video myself, might just do that...

Roughly the same size as a t-1000e so probably can

[tardy steeple]

I have like 20/30 iPods 5/6/7 I was repairing and modding them daily at one point .

I have the AirTag wired in and the node and iPod use the same battery voltage so I figured id try it out .

[tardy steeple]

Damn I want that haha. I picked up a prison TV from plainville the other day

[fierce moss]

Ha.

[fierce moss]

DJ, do you know the height of the highland ave tower?

im wondering if tossing one of these on might give a chance at OTA updates in an emergency
https://www.data-alliance.net/antenna-2-4ghz-5dbi-weatherproof-ip67-cable-to-rp-sma-or-u-fl-thru-hole-mount/

direct the BLE signal down. might reach

[fierce moss]

ok grabbed under voltage protection for this

and that directional puck for BLE

[rare mulch]

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

This was an interesting video:

When to use "Router"
When to use "Client Mute"
What to do when attending an event with high node density (nerds congregating)

[toxic shard]

yup yup, good vid. Lots of good stuff on that channel.

[steady solar]

Ayyyy pioneer valley mesh is starting to see ours, go to the bottom of the page
https://pvmesh.org/network/

Happy Turkey Day!

[toxic shard]

Ugg, another node forgot its name. This is so annoying

A thread in another channel said:

Some nodes, depending on the firmware version, have a bug where if the Node DB gets too large it will erase some settings. It happened to my car node once. It even forgot its own name, like on a soap opera.

So maybe I need to update that node's firmware. Of course it's a remote node 🤦‍♂️

[toxic shard]

Based on their traceroute map they're seeing Chippanee and that's how we're getting up there

[steady solar]

Wow that's interesting. Friend got a node on a roof in Windsor and is seeing the bottom of pv mesh inconsistently, come spring it's going up way higher on a tree so that'll help immensely.

[toxic shard]

Nice. I'm going to put a node in Windsor but it won't have any great height.

[toxic shard]

I like their net idea and the bot they've got going https://pvmesh.org/bot/

[tardy steeple]

Interesting.

[steady solar]

Anyone have thoughts on this? My roof node received the 2 "happy Thanksgiving" messages on LongFast today but my station g2 inside right below it never saw them. Any idea why this is inconsistent? They're so close together and traceroute just fine every time.

Also I'm noticing the roof node missed messages I sent from my station g2. Hmm.

[sudden locust]

If we assume that this is not an algorithm/software problem, the radiation pattern of the dipole/monopole antenna determines that the signal dead spot is directly above/below. The higher the antenna gain, the more obvious the dead spot.

[steady solar]

Hmmm interesting. The nodes are offset horizontally by a good 20 feet (so not literally above/below). I am using the stock antenna for the G2, a rokland 10db antenna on the roof.

What's also odd is I have yet another node in my car right outside that also did not receive the messages

I'll try to elevate my G2 tomorrow and see if that helps, the car node is more directly below my roof. Just weird that I can always trace my roof from my G2 without fail

[sudden locust]

20 feet is almost a blind spot, but at such a close distance, I am actually more inclined to believe some routing issues caused the problem.

[steady solar]

Thanks for the visuals - definitely helps me understand!

I wonder what could be causing a routing issue like this though

[sudden locust]

https://www.ahsystems.com/articles/Understanding-antenna-gain-beamwidth-directivity.php
Monopole Antennas

Gain: 6 dBi at best
Half-power beamwidth: 45 deg x 360 deg

The first angle is the angle covered by the ZY/ZX axis, the second angle is the angle covered by the XY plane. Therefore, the dead spot of the 10dbi antenna on the Z axis is expected be larger than this 6 dBi antenna.

[toxic shard]

A wild Neil appears 🙂

[tardy steeple]

New stuff has arrive .

Website said it was flashed and Meshtastic ready to go out the box .

Not working lol

[void cape]

Hop limit.

[steady solar]

Hmmm my hop limit is 7 on everything, I could up that. Not sure that would explain my roof not seeing the messages I sent from my base station though

[rare mulch]

i think 7 is the maximum value.

[fierce moss]

7 is max

Without editing firmware

[rare mulch]

what is the advantage of a large antenna vs a small antenna if they are the same dbi?

Example -
a small 17 cm whip antenna vs 149cm.

both 10dbi?

long
https://www.amazon.com/RAIGEN-Antenna-Omni-Directional-Sensecap-Separately/dp/B09PVB1M6Q?crid=2UB3OK1EQBO9Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.imaWr5CtJXMLqNS2mtFMrDkHAV4n8JgWNCgucDrKiwelIY90oqXiIAv4HYtsQ8DgqHwnmfn0V9e_eHikhvDSur1hbXkPLhc4JhNRIxGhSxGh_YFk1aTgujkP3trBRpGk5n2uJPUkku3EAVLYh_9T_q_5ihyHvSvvZ7RVZYycafZ6Kfp43g3SYxGQmq37m0B_1L4GEcNf6mMcwIdIB20NkuY1kxfSHJG7-hBlZbo0YCw.KjYR_N1Zag0nDxtaV16FXmkAqdcRtCgB7jeQC07W2Mc&dib_tag=se&keywords=10+dBi+915+n+type+10dbi&qid=1732891998&sprefix=10+dbi+915+n+type+10dbi%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-1

short
https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Meshtastic-915MHz-Antenna-10dBi/dp/B0D3KPFVH3?crid=1BZYN4WZL7SQ5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.y6g0B69ZkFTpPw7bZ0Td6Fs_7P8Pi3gE_Ca390lgmM3DpLOgnJT3OLTUiEMiS-BOUyG6tLSUykfAXQ7trXHHY1xC4RQY_vmMiRtQoHA1tkw-D5948wrbm3Na8BIHj26B8rtg0yyxZycqes5o_e4EeQRUmnMYxXScBLtkxM--2HfvnAeqz-zqYpmDlx_k0MUGnJasS97i7ngDgpmieWMkIv2PCAMdwq8g-ItN46zKsBY.bA2TV1AnyK9HnO1fFMuZFOSMMtceEPk52kpqHA8k5OU&dib_tag=se&keywords=10+dbi+915&qid=1732892076&sprefix=10dbi+915%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-4

[fierce moss]

Antenna math is a WHOLE THING. lol
You’re def better bringing it to the antenna channel where the antenna crazy enthusiasts will go over it all.

But size affects a lot. Pattern angles, swr/efficiency. etc.

[rare mulch]

rf = black magic

[fierce moss]

And a high dbi antenna is NOT always the best

I’d never put a 10 on my car. In CT the hills would make it useless

Big flat donut signal.

[rare mulch]

that would explain why i got 0 contacts on my drive to RI yesterday

[fierce moss]

You’ll skip over everyone while you’re too high. Under when too low, and when going uphill or downhill you’re on an angle

If you were in the Midwest where you’re flat, sure

You want a nice big bubble.

Look at the patterns listed for the antenna before buying.

Like the rural 10dbi on rokland very specially warns people that it’s narrow and that they probably want the 8.5

I have the flat 10 on my base station as i have double coverage from my Torrington node with an 8.5. And my barn reaches to fringes better.

[toxic shard]

It's hard to get contacts while driving. Nodes only chirp out so often, often measured in hours. Unless you leave a node to sit and wait, if it's sparse area it'll likely not see anything. Around here where we've got dozens of nodes you'll usually see something sending nodeinfo, telemetry, or position every few minutes. But on the road, you can be in and out of Line of Sight for a small mesh in a couple of minutes.

[toxic shard]

It's not just about your hop limit. The message has a hop limit and if it was at 3/3 when it reach you, your node isn't sending it out again.

[tardy steeple]

#antennas

[steady solar]

Ah true. Still doesn't explain why a message sent by my indoor node didn't reach my roof 😦

[rare mulch]

how many hops to each of these?

[toxic shard]

You'd need to inspect their message details. On iOS you long-press to do that. Not sure on Android

MeshSense has it in the log in its own column

[void cape]

Seconds, really, with some hills in Connecticut

[thorn dragon]

I’m based in RI and honestly don’t see many nodes here. Or maybe my settings/hardware are off

[toxic shard]

Happy to review them. What's your node ID?

[thorn dragon]

The user ID is !435727f0
Thanks!

[toxic shard]

The easiest way to check the config would be to take screenshots of all the settings either in the app or on the https://client.meshtastic.org web client. Or, if you're nerdy, to use the command line tool to export your settings as yaml (if you do that, redact your private key, etc)

[void cape]

I’ve never seen this node but I’m also in Western CT.. what rough area are you in?

[thorn dragon]

Providence, RI. I usually can’t see anything from my condo, but can see some stuff on the road. Last time I was in west CT, I saw a few nodes

[toxic shard]

What kind of node is it?

[void cape]

This is all I’ve got for that are

That was on 10/4 so maybe it’s not there anymore

[thorn dragon]

Heltec v3. Would all config info help, or just some specific ones?

[toxic shard]

Most important is the LoRa, Device, and the Channel settings for the Primary channel

[toxic shard]

This is from my Station G2, indoors, ALFA 5dbi omni on a magmount (oven tray)

This is from SOL, a RAK 4631 outside with an 8.5dbi omni

Surprised by that

(7.5 miles)

[nimble vale]

I told you to stop posting photos of me

[fierce moss]

The G2’s supposed have much better selectivity

[thorn dragon]

Apologies for the delay. These are my settings

[toxic shard]

no worries about delays, it's all for fun 🙂

I would turn on "Ok to MQTT" to allow your packets to be relayed online (mostly for the map)

If this is your only node, I would choose "Client" instead of "Client Mute"

Otherwise I don't see anything wrong. What antenna are you using with the Heltec?

[thorn dragon]

The default. I think that’s my biggest issue

[toxic shard]

could be. Do you have a case for your Heltec V3 yet?

Our channel member @round gull has an Etsy shop with nodes. He might have a case for sale too. I ask because you're going to want to have something with an SMA connector you can hook a good antenna up to.

I'd start with this antenna https://www.etsy.com/listing/1689350989/whip-antenna-17cm-for-lora-and

(you can get it on a few places, but Muzi is reputable. Random Amazon antennas can be a crap shoot.)

Getting a case that will let you mount that antenna vertical, and then putting it as high up as you can should help.

Eventually you'll get the bug to buy a Station G2, happens to us all 😉

(am I baiting Neil... maybe...)

[thorn dragon]

thanks!

[toxic shard]

I would also look at HeyWhatsThat.com and create a New Panorama from your location and height above ground level to establish a baseline of what you could likely reach if you had an idealy deployed node. If you're in a tight valley with little Line of Sight (LOS) reach, then better antennas won't do you any good.

Sometimes HeyWhatsThat shows you need to get some nodes spread around on higher points to make it out. Maybe friends, family, or workplaces. Or you can see if there are any Ham Radio operators in adventageous locations who might be interested in helping. That's worked for me. This website is good for finding hams by location of their registered station https://haminfo.tetranz.com/map

My approach has been to just buy nodes and give them out to friends and hams to try to create coverage where I want it to be. Of course that's dependent on a bit of speculative money to roll the dice on.

[fierce moss]

@rare mulch hey, shooting you a DM

[fierce moss]

have GFR1 and GFR2 not had a proper position beacon since i updated?

[fierce moss]

looks like it...

fixed.

remote admin is so much better with PKC

[toxic shard]

that's awesome

[rare mulch]

Hi Gary, got your DM. I'm not sure I understand why the community needs another internet connected node in my geographic region. How does expanding the mesh via mqtt/internet help to establish a mesh that is useful when there is no internet? I can see how it would be used to an Individuals or specific groups favor, for their communication and troubleshooting needs, but IMHO, it does not help the community mesh as a whole. I am new to all of this, but I'm inclined to say we need more strategically placed nodes, not internet connected nodes. If I'm wrong, help me understand? Posting here because I think it's a valuable discussion point.

[fierce moss]

I agree. This is just a stop gap measure until I can get the link between the Torrington and Bristol routers stable.

There’s a full plan to do so. And I’m hoping this will only be about 2 to 3 months at the most.

I will be migrating my Torrington router to a new location and should be getting about 100 feet in elevation with very clear line of sight over to my Chippenwe hill router

At that point there will be no reason to keep this MQTT server up and running. My goal is to have everything entirely off grid and solar.

I do get SOME packets that pass through already, but it just isn’t stable enough to handle the actual mesh traffic yet. It will be with the new location.

It’s entirely temporary. I’m in full agreement with you on zero grid reliance

[void cape]

My uncle in Middletown (near Durham honestly) is interested in hosting a node at his location. He’s not super interested in participating but is willing to let me install it on a pole on his roof.

2" outside diameter length 18' about 8' available pole space

(He’s got other antennas and wind turbines and such on his roof)

[fierce moss]

Cool

[toxic shard]

@fierce moss what do you use for pole mounting the enclosures you've used so far? Is there a kit that's compatible?

[toxic shard]

Any idea if it has good southern exposure for a solar node?

[fierce moss]

this

https://amzn.to/3Zvf7GM

screwed on plus generous M3 adhesive

[tardy steeple]

Can’t figure out my node .

I have the
Poe splitter
Rak board
Pie board
Waveshare

Won’t turn on

[fierce moss]

what kind of PoE switch?

which splitter?

which pi?

and take a pic

theres only a few things it can be

[tardy steeple]

I can take pic in morning just hopped in car to head to work

It’s this build from here

https://youtu.be/AFeyqgVLzYM?si=n_kQq-pHsxPUYA_G

Poe splitter

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0831M4ST9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=tc20f-20&linkId=815ad5bd8d318756baa61299c049e4fe&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Pie

I just found this on AliExpress: $25.93 | Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Development Board PI0 2W with case
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNeNcmb

Waveshare

I just found this on AliExpress: $23.15 | Waveshare 5V RJ45 Ethernet USB HUB Module HAT Expansion Board Shield Starter Kit For RPI Raspberry Pi Zero W WH 2W 2 3B Plus
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrdPJsF

I think it’s my Ethernet cable gland .

Everything works directly when assembled nothing works

[fierce moss]

It powers up via the splitter without the gland?

That should all work.

What PoE switch or injector are you using?

[tardy steeple]

Yes

[toxic shard]

Does the hole pattern line up to the enclosure, or are you adding more penetrations?

[fierce moss]

two of the screws line up. i seal those + the bottom of the plate. they are super secure

[fierce moss]

likely then yea :/

[tardy steeple]

https://a.co/d/3DDF5bd

[fierce moss]

yea thats fine

if it doesnt work past your gland, that's the issue

should easily work with all that

does it look like this one?

[tardy steeple]

Yes , I need to find mounts or something tho . I have mine tied down

[toxic shard]

Interesting seeing 8109 (my node named VOX which forgot its identity), which is inside a big industrial building much lower than my home, being a better relay to GFR2 than either of the nodes in my house

(note the tooltip at the bottom, that's what I'm referring to)

This is where the "routing" in meshtastic confuses me. Since 8109 would hear the packet from JW+ more weakly, it'd get first crack at relaying it. So in some senses meshtastic finds the worst working "route"

(I recently turned off Router mode on SOL, so I'm seeing more of this)

[fierce moss]

is 8109 set to router mode?

if it is, it isnt about signal stength, it is about timing

router steals priority

[tardy steeple]

Why does my t1000e get better range then my heltec v3

[potent ravine]

Does this make my ERP look big?

[tropic cobalt]

Bought a couple of Heltec V3s and have them working around Simsbury/Avon. Nothing special yet antenna wise, though.....

[fierce moss]

ha

[tardy steeple]

Need to find an enclosure for this

[toxic shard]

No, it's client.

[fierce moss]

strange

[toxic shard]

Timing is based on signal strength, so I think 8109 heard more weakly than SOL or G2 and so it relayed sooner, while SOL and G2 were waiting their delay based on receiving it strongly. If 8109 hadn't heard it, they'd have taken a crack.

[fierce moss]

i wonder what the LoS/antenna setup is

Router steals it out of the client class outright though

[toxic shard]

It's a basic folding antenna, the stock one with the Atlavox S4

Nothing in plainville is a router now.

[fierce moss]

ah

[tardy steeple]

Do you think that solar nodes ever gonna come back in stock? I’m trying to look at one that I can just buy out right instead of building one.

Wanna place it on a farm in Southbury

[toxic shard]

If a strong node hears a packet at say hop 0/7, and is waiting its delay, then hears another weak node relay it at hop 1/7, is that the end of the relaying for those two, or would the strong node relay after its delay as 2/7?

[toxic shard]

He's working on a new beefy node. I haven't heard if the S4 is coming back in stock.

[tardy steeple]

I’ve seen some on Etsy might just buy one there

[toxic shard]

The similar Etsy one is reasonable. It just doesn't allow 4 18650's

[tardy steeple]

Kinda looks like a trail cam tree mount with a solar panel

[toxic shard]

These are all trail cam hardware adapted

The S4 is, they all are

If it's not 3D printed

Here's the rest of that email

And this was the prior email teasing it

[tardy steeple]

I was looking at this but the photos confused me .

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1663844653/

[toxic shard]

Agreed, not a well put together listing

Also not obvious how you'd mount the panel to something. It's those deployment details that separate solid nodes from thrown together stuff.

[toxic shard]

like, this is just dumb lol

JW+ and G2 are in the same house, 8109 is a mile or two away

[steady solar]

Time to change some of the indoor nodes to client_mute?

That way you're not generating extra hops and suboptimal routes

[fierce moss]

Gotta get a nice 8.5dbi for the roof for JW+

[tardy steeple]

I was told never to put any of mine on client mute

Even if I have four, literally right next to each other

[fierce moss]

thats wrong

you sould have one base station in an optimal spot. Networked if able.

any inside the house should be on mute

you only want one node relaying at your location. the rest just degrade the network

[tardy steeple]

Say I’m kind of new to this and I’m just going by what people are telling me you know I don’t really know a lot.

Thank
You

[fierce moss]

np

[tardy steeple]

Yeah, I have three or four just chilling on my dresser right next to each other

[fierce moss]

Yea. One on the roof/attic/wherever your base station will be. Rest on mute.

Car node doesn’t need to be on mute

[toxic shard]

I support the advice given. It isn't quite applicable to what I'm saying though. 8109 isn't in my house, it's miles away, low and indoors (in the window of a metal building no less).

JW+ exists only to feed the map on my side. It was Client Mute until Gary found that was impeeding using it for remote management of GFR2.

SOL is outside on a pole with a 8.5dBi antenna. For stock 0.1W power, it's about as good as it can get short of a tower. I'm doing testing of it's power system and enclosure. Definitely feels like it should be Client or Router.

G2 is indoors with a 5dBi antenna that's primarily to hear anything in Plainville that SOL's gain misses. Long term I'd consolidate with a roof mounted G2, but that's not likely until at least the fall. Feels like G2 should also be Client.

Otherwise other powered nodes are Client Mute (usually just CARD), and my car node JW is Client.

Maybe 8109 could be Client Mute, but it feels far enough away that it may be helping the mesh in Plainville.

[potent ravine]

That's a good idea i should put my home node in my attic

On a beam facing east

[toxic shard]

Unless you have a metal roof or foil-lined insulation

[potent ravine]

I do not

[toxic shard]

Then it's a big radio enclosure waiting for its radio 🙂

[tardy steeple]

Mail just got here

[toxic shard]

noice

[potent ravine]

My attic is a unexplored territory. Which is rare for a ham

[toxic shard]

Unrelated observation. This is a G2 at work, indoors stock antenna

And this is another G2 in the same space testing a cavity filter

So far, doesn't seem to help in this specific environment. But I need to test a bit more, get a better set of data

[tardy steeple]

Speaking of cavity filter I was talking to someone on Facebook he recommended this

I just found this on AliExpress: $130.49 | Callboost Cavity Filter 915mhz For Helium Hotspot Booster Lora Network AGC 915 mhz Flarm Booster 915 MHz Cavity Filter 26M
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrfOqtp

[toxic shard]

Ordered one of those today because of the sale price

The ones I've already got are a different brand / formfactor

I'm preparing a node that'll be on a mast with other non-LoRa sources nearby so looking to see if the filter helps or not in that deployment.

[tardy steeple]

The only problem I have is it ordering that is it says that the colors ship randomly and I have really bad OCD so if I get the wrong color, I’m going to go nuts

[hoary oxide]

Which filters did you get?

[toxic shard]

https://acasom.com/products/915mhz-cavity-filter-for-helium-network-amplifier-filter-sma-type-high-out-band-rejection

Going AFK for a bit, will check back

[void cape]

It does. Great south solar coverage. No trees in the way. I think most of the radio direction it will cover will be north and west from his location though, due to a small hill next to the house.

[toxic shard]

Sounds very promising

[void cape]

I don’t really know if it’s going to be a great location. Will find out. He’s about half a mile north of Durham center.

He’s on a bit of a hill so I think it would be at least somewhat good.

[severe quest]

If he's on/near rt17 near durham that's less than 5 miles from me, hopefully we'll get a link

[void cape]

Probably so!

[potent ravine]

Are you guys in Hartford County able to see me moving on your map

[tardy steeple]

Just lost a node fml

[fierce moss]

Pop the grate. Grab it

[tardy steeple]

Won’t budge

[fierce moss]

Crowbar/prybar

[fierce moss]

Grabber stick… Fishing pole… you can get it.

[potent ravine]

Brother!

[nimble vale]

The grates are extremely heavy but should come up

[toxic shard]

I wasn't looking at the time, but this is what the web map recorded

Assuming you're talking about SNIF

[potent ravine]

Pretty close

[potent ravine]

Yes

[toxic shard]

Pretty sure MQTT somewhere nearby is causing these western mass nodes to appear local

Weird part is I’m no longer downlinking messages on the default public channel

So how it’s getting relayed I don’t understand

Reported signal

[tropic cobalt]

Is there any advantage to use the ConnNet settings as opposed to GAFnet settings if my meshing at this point is still minimal?

[steady solar]

Any reason why we're suddenly reaching nodes over mqtt in the past month? A bit confusing as to who we should actually be reaching

Also in case anyone cares (pinging @sudden locust since he showed interest), I believe I was able to resolve my message connectivity issues from inside my house to my roof. node I swapped the antenna on my station G2 to my Rak Wireless 2.3 dbi blade antenna and now I don't seem to have missed a message since.

Lower dbi so the radiation pattern probably makes it more consistent.

[toxic shard]

A few in the area have connected mqtt downlink to Gary's broker and that's created some weirdness in what we're seeing.

I'm not a fan of it, especially when for some reason a lot of it is not getting tagged as mqtt

[steady solar]

Yeah that's what issue I'm having It's nice for map report but I have no idea who I'm supposed to be seeing without MQTT at this point, along with messages

[toxic shard]

Yeah seeing messages from the PV mesh's morning net

[tardy steeple]

The city just came out and got it for me .

[fierce moss]

We delinked long fast from
Mqtt for the whole east

[toxic shard]

I'm not sure it's working as expected

[fierce moss]

Those PV mesh links are planes

It is

[toxic shard]

I don't think they're planes, it's been multiple days in a row

[fierce moss]

I can confirm those came in Lora

Not sure how

I don’t have any mqtt links up there at all

[toxic shard]

I think they're getting to our area weakly as lora and then spreading via mqtt, perhaps with an older firmware that's not tagging the messages properly

[fierce moss]

Ahh

[toxic shard]

That's my hunch, no data yet

[fierce moss]

I can review the mqtt broker.

[toxic shard]

because I'm seeing them at 7dB, which means they're coming from my own nodes

Even a plane isn't going to be 7dB

[fierce moss]

If they were just mqtt, there’s no signal report. It shows blank

[toxic shard]

If it's working properly!

[toxic shard]

like this, this is inexplicable

[fierce moss]

I’ll look at versions too. I don’t know of any 2.3+ that didn’t

And long fast def isn’t passing

I can’t reach out beyond JW+

[sudden locust]

correct, and I also noted this here: https://wiki.uniteng.com/en/meshtastic/station-g2#antenna-considerations

[fierce moss]

Only DMs

[toxic shard]

?

[fierce moss]

No channel traffic is linked beyond you. Just connet and DMs

[toxic shard]

Do you log the messages? Did you see the chatter from PV this morning?

[fierce moss]

I’ll look when able.

Feeding the kid

[toxic shard]

Received these this morning in Bristol:

on the public primary channel

[fierce moss]

TBM is a car

i think GF68 is the issue. that isnt a realistic LoRa link yet

ill check the upstream on that

[toxic shard]

That's @tardy steeple

[fierce moss]

ahh

yea i think 99.9% of the non-lora traffic is coming from him. i didnt realize he was in stratford

the rest is all real mesh (minus the temporary bridging traffic)

or at least could be

[toxic shard]

I wonder if maybe there's a node at his site on the public mqtt and another on yours?

[fierce moss]

does SOL reach west hartford?

[toxic shard]

Not yet

I can't see @hoary oxide's nodes usually

I'd need to get a node up on Pinnacle Rock

[fierce moss]

i have no link to the public mqtt. its just this private. Ghost has a longin direct

may need to ask him to drop longfast.

or tune it

[toxic shard]

Right, but what if another node was on public, bridiging public to lora, and then lora to your uplink?

[fierce moss]

that is true...

[toxic shard]

Just a theory, not even a hunch

[fierce moss]

i didnt think of that

that could get out of hand if so

[toxic shard]

The thing that bothers me most is that stuff isn't showing as mqtt

that's the really weird part

[fierce moss]

yea

let me bring this up with the devs too.

[toxic shard]

(to be clear, I mean SOME stuff isn't, a lot of mqtt is properly tagged)

[fierce moss]

im in full agreement with you though. i want the final product to be LoRa only

with mqtt only as an input trunk for services like Bots

weather, chatgpt, lookup, or automated signal testing

etc

[fierce moss]

i wonder if those being on 2.4 are making a difference

[toxic shard]

Totally

Or maybe even earlier. I opened a G2 yesterday that was on 2.3

(I've since updated it)

[tardy steeple]

That’s me

Am I doing something wrong ?

[toxic shard]

We're not sure, but if you could let us know what nodes you've got active, what firmware version they're on, and if they're connected to Gary's MQTT, the public MQTT, or neither.

[fierce moss]

We just want the goal of any nodes on the network to be real LoRa within a realistic timeframe. It's definitely doable for your area, especially with DJ's help, but we need to make sure no other MQTT is leaking into the mesh. or we have to cut it

[tardy steeple]

T beam supreme

v2.5.9.936260f

On Gary’s mqtt

[fierce moss]

like no other nodes that are talking to you from down there

[tardy steeple]

Barely any traffic here . An occasional hello or good morning . Nothing that would be a conversation

[toxic shard]

🤔

[fierce moss]

the map does show your node cluster as pretty tight down there

pieces for the new Torrington node are slowly trickling in

that'll help a ton.

Also, once I retire the TFG node, im going to bring it to my buddy's house in prospect. it may reach there.

unless @potent ravine has access to some giant tower down that way as well.

[tardy steeple]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDCeJlXMegG/?igsh=MXdhdGdlenZhNHE1OA==

emcommsolutions

I started my journey with Meshtastic over two years ago and this year it has really grown in popularity. Today we'll discuss some the issues around using Meshtastic radios for emergency communications and what is next for the project. Hint, the future is looking really promising!
Announcement from Meshtastic: https://meshtastic.org/blog/introdu...

Instagram

[fierce moss]

like i dont know what that giant new tower is in the middle of waterbury near the clock tower? lol

dunno how long thats been there. i dont drive that way a ton but just noticed it

highland ave will be huge though.

[jolly ruin]

Just throwing this out for random info. This was from Talcott on the ridge on stock heltec v3 with that tiny bumpy antenna this past weekend. 13 Miles.

[steady solar]

@nimble vale would do dirty things to get a node on top of Talcott. That would open a huge connection between west and east Farmington

[fierce moss]

@toxic shard how much were those cold weather 18650s? im thinking i'd like 4 of them for the new torrington node

@potent ravine the Box is all set with a 2" ubolt.
For the antenna itself, do you recommend a side arm mount of some sort to move it away from the tower by at least a few inches? Otherwise it would be mounted almost flush with the tower pole itself and block a significant amount of signal on that side i assume. Not that that would be the end of the world. We really just need it to directionally go eastward as long as it can handle a 2 mile clean LoS westward

something like this

the box could go right on the pole. You tell me and ill design it right

[potent ravine]

I need to talk to my boss first. And see if they have scheduled maintenance

Because it may be out until spring unless something goes down

[toxic shard]

$13.99 each (ouch) https://liionwholesale.com/products/cold-weather-protected-3500mah-10a-18650-button-top-battery-wholesale-discount?variant=40574021992517&srsltid=AfmBOopLa4nR3PFxkx10xlQ0MFbIs0aDK7MIDZha59FP9rGyf5Q3m7_FQWo&com_cvv=8fb3d522dc163aeadb66e08cd7450cbbdddc64c6cf2e8891f6d48747c6d56d2c

(not in reply to the correct message, but I think you follow)

Note, button top might be a problem for your usual holder

Nitecore makes an even more expensive one https://nitecorestore.com/products/nitecore-nl1835lthp-cold-weather-low-temperature-high-performance-18650-battery?srsltid=AfmBOoqtqijnNy6_Wg33BItW-RrapBcr3cE16G6ZXJwSltT-OvX_jVka

(I think these are for use in flashlights, etc, in extreme cold)

[fierce moss]

Yea we don’t need high amp discharge. We need safe cold weather charging

It’s all super low amp charge/discharge

[fierce moss]

I’m going to use a slightly larger box than normal. So there’s room for the directional BT on the bottom and more solid switches

So you can turn solar/battery on and off. For disconnecting the antenna if needed.

That also means i could use a lipo pack

[tardy steeple]

I just picked up this .

I just found this on AliExpress: $106.71 | DaierTek White Outdoor Electrical Box Waterproof Nema Enclosure 16x11x6 Plastic Wifi Box with Fan Vented Dust Screen
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mLqeliB

[fierce moss]

whats this for? your base station?

for a standard solar node that will be accessible in an emergency (not 200ft up a tower) these work fine
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B2RH6Y9G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$16

ive built 4 solar routers with them so far.

if it's for your base station, go nuts.

[tardy steeple]

I have no idea . 🤷‍♂️ kinda got it after I ate some medicated gummy’s

[fierce moss]

haha

use it for your PoE setup at the house

go off the roof or way up a tree. etc

[tardy steeple]

I also got some peltier coolers things

[fierce moss]

those are the most inefficient form of heating/cooling on the planet lol

but they are neat toys

[tardy steeple]

True the “ fridge “ I made was a neat project , however a hotel fridge uses less electricity

[fierce moss]

yea

they can generate power too.

tiny amounts, but some

if you feed them backwards with heat/cooling

thats how all those really crappy/dont-really-do-anything wood stove fans work

[tardy steeple]

I have one of those

I have a cabin in Vernon ( haven’t been to it in about 2 years )

[fierce moss]

ah nice

any property ?

deer?

[fierce moss]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/267077049748?_skw=antenna+tower+side+arm+mount+stand+off+ham+radio+clampgalvanized&itmmeta=01JE6RWTY3QG1DY9W1P0Q3D99X&hash=item3e2f085d94:g:q~cAAOSwRqxmhE9J&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAABAHoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKnbo%2FeQtkjpM%2B3OOARkZ4r713tVQApNzvI%2Bjs6%2FZXfzZPVuriI60OrZf0Uj8wrQNF6GA--oVkQ9nzonOCqyNSYK1BHdMyn%2BGd6%2B7EehAVYe%2BjyBjIkEAZrlsRExu1sZI%2BHL0bHjzl4x2CBdDZxlYRQTN45Kz8s8ai2tAib2v6s8TlAMOosYhj2FNU13qm6ArtxoClMMzL7PgkGWFIDXV798tGZlJlVkzLKQuwIWAqrhkZzwdR7OuKQm26S7SWlLTIRk2t5Rt2qb8q52PPALBPJ84e4mvTgX8Kr%2BVRdPYFg6KdcPeBhuA2BjhFGJRAO%2Fs3c%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR5Kv89jxZA

this might be perfect for the new torrington router. if DJ OKs it

would get it off the main tower. can put the box and antenna on the far pole and get the antenna a foot off the main tower.

[toxic shard]

For cold weather sub zero-celcius charging the only options really are AGM or other lead, or LTO. Or to have a heating element.

[fierce moss]

im wondering if charging/discharging at such a low amperage just wont matter

i use lithium ion rechargables in my trail cameras. they discharge fine

[void cape]

Nice!

[void cape]

Perhaps we should set up an IRC bot on a commonly used IRC server. If you don’t expose MQTT native, they can’t bridge trivially.

[fierce moss]

Even that irc bot would be via an mqtt node lol

I already setup a discord bot in my channel

It works

[void cape]

Mhm

[tardy steeple]

Place a light bulb inside

[fierce moss]

For a hyper energy efficient solar node? lol

[toxic shard]

Agreed, I’d only take the extra step if it was going to be really really I inaccessible

[fierce moss]

Well the Torrington tower is like 200ft…

It’s not coming down anytime soon

[tardy steeple]

Will provide heat

[fierce moss]

It’s not feasible. Would take 1000x more energy than the node.

[toxic shard]

Heated LFP batteries use like 10% charging power to heat the cells. If you go overboard on solar and maybe insulate a bit, it might not be hard to

Doesn’t need to be warm, just needs to get to like 40F

Probably not worth it at this scale, but a kind of fun experiment

[fierce moss]

Yea

[tardy steeple]

“” It would suck power but a tail light bulb in the housing would heat up the enclosure.
In Canada people would put a light bulb in the Hot tub enclosure to keep the pvc from cracking. “”

[fierce moss]

If you have mains power that works.

[tardy steeple]

You could rig up a power resistor powered by a separate battery and solar cell and heavily insulate your enclosure. You could control it using a temperature sensor - the sensor would send current through the resistor whenever the interior temp dropped below a certain level, and shut it off when the interior temp rose to a certain level.

This page has a description of a system that was used in a high-altitude balloon’s payload package: https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/188

[fierce moss]

4x 18650 cells will power a rak for almost 30 days of no solar.

Putting w light in there will drop it to under a day

[fierce moss]

That’s closer to something that could work

[toxic shard]

Having a temperature switch on charging could work. I bet a panel in winter sun heats an attached enclosure enough

This could be a whole YouTube series. I don’t want to make it though

[tardy steeple]

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/19j7n8ven1/?mibextid=K35XfP

[craggy vigil]

I have these for basestaion use

[void cape]

The issue is that the heating element and even the sensor to drive said element is going to draw power. The low power sleep mode on ESP’s these days is measured in micro amps, which is probably what the circuitry for the temperature control would be at minimum.

In that case, even w/o a heater, you loose that much more energy.

I highly doubt that any of this matters to be honest. The level of charging and discharging could be made comparable to the internal resistance and losses of the battery itself. It’s not like leaving it disconnected means that it’s not going to continue chemical reactions, with it’s own internal losses

Charging the battery in the cold is less efficient but I highly doubt it’s remotely “dangerous” at low C rates.

[craggy vigil]

"Seeed Pod" - I'm thinking of selling these for a base price of $25-30 - what do you guys think?

[void cape]

That’s a cute little device. Does it attach to the phone like a pop socket?

Something I was wondering about is if there’s a slim rod style that could hold a decent size battery that could be marketed towards leaving in a purse. My mother takes hers everywhere and you could easily fit a small radio in there

The biggest problem I find is that I forget to bring the radio with me places.

[craggy vigil]

How much is he asking for that one? - Can it hang from a tree branch or attach to Vinyl siding? 😉

[tardy steeple]

What’s that one you have?

[craggy vigil]

It uses MagSafe - For portable units if they have a Phone with a C connector that can power the radio they can just plug it in with the OTG cable.

[craggy vigil]

MeshMate - Mine has the base cap for a generic air tag - I also make a magnetic base. 4 point mount - straps, pole mount, bike handle bar, belt, carabiner, etc

[tardy steeple]

Looks nice

[steady solar]

What's the details of this setup? I always like the way e ink looks, and that's a nice small package

@toxic shard see now this is why I'm confused about what MQTT is doing, your 2 messages from CARD over ConnNet came through just fine but I can't traceroute to you to save my life

[toxic shard]

The last time I bought an Atlavox S4 it was $129.99

[toxic shard]

Wish messages said if they were RF or MQTT

Jeff K1HFZ in Berlin was commenting his ConnNet traffic was quiet so I sent those mostly to see if he’d get them

[severe quest]

I wonder if that's just at the app level, I know the devices themselves have flags in the messages for what type they are

[craggy vigil]

The module comes with all the hardware - I got the ant holder from Thingverse https://www.etsy.com/listing/1833719937/meshtastic-heltec-wireless-paper?

[craggy vigil]

I designed this case with a sliding hatch a while ago - I only sold a couple

[fierce moss]

ok. i ordered Five brand new Molicel M35A 18650 3500mAh batteries.

Just making a list here for parts that ill edit to keep track....

[tardy steeple]

I was told to scoop these up

https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/epoch-batteries-21700-5000mah-5a-battery-with-pcb-and-6-leads

[fierce moss]

not bad. i just already have 18650 holders and testers

$35.31 - 5x Molicel M35A 18650 3500mAh
$26.99 - weatherproof box 8.6×6.7×4.3 inch (220×170×110mm)
$7.36 - 2x high quality toggle switches for solar/battery disconnect
$9.39 - IPEX -> N Flushmount connectors
$13.50 - more 3M marine Sealant
$12.99 - 6w Solar Panel
$14.20 - Flushmount Directional BLE antenna
$36.94 - wisblock starter kit
$39.97 - 8.5 dBi N-Male Omni Outdoor Helium 915 MHz Antenna (Large Profile 40")
$0.00 - Left over 18650 holders/Spare Wire/3dprinted mount/hotglue/roktape

$196.65

i think i just need to find a mount now

oh.. and a short LMR400 cable depending on the mount arm

it'll be worth it though. id rather overbuild the two routers

[tardy steeple]

Just got a few things on aliexpress and I paid in German British pounds ?

[fierce moss]

weird

[fierce moss]

have a vpn on or something?

[tardy steeple]

Trying to finish up an Etsy order and the comms channel and Magic growing shop are both on vacation mode

[tardy steeple]

All I did was click check out on paypal

[toxic shard]

People complain about the price of solar nodes on Etsy etc, but even if you cheaped out you'd be hard pressed to do it for a lot less than that. And the result would show. It's easy to spend $25 on an indoor Heltec V3 node and think that's the baseline. Makes a $90 WisMesh Pocket seem crazy expensive. But really it's not. It's like a $25 Baofeng vs a $250 Yaesu VX-6r. Which do you want to rely on?

(the node with the parts you listed would reasonably be $300 on Etsy, or $259.99 on sale)

[fierce moss]

Yea

I’d say my other routers were $160ish.

[toxic shard]

ECHL is local, the others are via a mysterious path (MQTT? wild RF?)

First is 7:03am

I saw them at home in Plainville and at work in Bristol

🤔

[void cape]

Did the PV mesh switch to like repeater mode instead of router mode?

[toxic shard]

I don't think so

[steady solar]

Happens to me on aliexpress all the time, language will change, currency will change lol

[fierce moss]

If it did, repeaters don’t show up

[devout plaza]

https://pvmesh.org/network/routers/provin-mountain/ ?

[toxic shard]

wtf is this? JW+ -> GF00 -> GFR1 -> GFR2 -> G2 -> GFMS

(JW+ and G2 are mine, same house)

[toxic shard]

Great location, but I'm not seeing it in in the mesh

("PMRS" aka dda3)

[devout plaza]

Thought maybe that was your link up to W MA

[toxic shard]

Not yet as far as I can tell

[fierce moss]

That’s…. Interesting…

When GFR1 and GFR2 decide to talk lol

I’ve seen a lot of packets go between them actually since the leaves are down

Means the highland tower should do the trick

[void cape]

That’s my point

[tardy steeple]

Pm sent

[toxic shard]

Yeah, from JW+ to GF00 over MQTT to GFR1 over RF to GFR2 over RF to G2 over RF and then to GFMS over MQTT via JW+ since that's the only thing I've got connected to mqtt. Full loop and change

[tardy steeple]

@fierce moss

https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/s/aOwSDA0bZB

[fierce moss]

Neat. I’ll watch it when home

[fierce moss]

oh. its lego lol

[steady solar]

@craggy vigil ruh roh
https://reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1h6equ8/meshtastic_design_thief/

Looks like it's licensed under Creative Commons

[tardy steeple]

I sent him a pm about that . I didn’t wanna post it in a group chat setting .

[jolly ruin]

i need a 3D printer.. going to ask Santa for it this year.

[tardy steeple]

I had 5 they all went swimming

[jolly ruin]

oh no - hope they had a life jacket on

[fierce moss]

im going to upgrade my extruder and hotend this weekend i think

bite the bullet and grab the SwissMicro stuff

[nimble vale]

If anyone needs something printed lmk

[toxic shard]

Drones and 3D Printers are two rabbit holes I've specifically not allowed myself to go down, because if there's one thing I know about myself, it's how easily I slip into rabbit holes.

[nimble vale]

For those two specifically I keep it to plug and play, I have enough junk to tinker with lol

[steady solar]

Honestly 3d printer has a big ROI and can basically pay for itself. I mostly use premade designs for what I need and spend very little time tinkering

Would highly recommend

[toxic shard]

Gunna be honest, I can't remember who/which nodes belong to @nimble vale and @jolly ruin . Apologies 😬

[nimble vale]

I’m E7RX

[toxic shard]

Our community has grown to where I can't remember everyone, I guess that's a great thing

Ok, I'll keep the E7R convention in mind

[jolly ruin]

McFly/Echelon (and a couple others I still need to hand out to friends)

[toxic shard]

I didn't realize you were ECHL too

Ok, thanks. At least now I can go back and search here when I forget again 😛

[fierce moss]

maybe we need another pinned comment with users -> node list

might help

[tardy steeple]

Nah the flood in the valley took out everything . Including my warehouse area and production area for my tea and soap companies . Insurance covered like 3 grand outta about 26 grand

How do you do that ? No name

[fierce moss]

damn

what kind of soap?

[tardy steeple]

Bar soap . Basically Dr Squatch for a comparison

Old school cold process

[fierce moss]

yea. we make small scale cold process goat and sheep milk soap here

https://www.facebook.com/GreatAcresFarm

[tardy steeple]

All that was salvageable i boxed up and shipped out

[tardy steeple]

Nice . I worked with a few local farmers down here for goats milk. Never done sheep milk .

I had a mother who wanted me to make breast milk soap. That was a process . I did tho .

[void cape]

Ham users can put their license in the node name. That helps a lot.

[void cape]

I bought a DJI drone and a Bambu X1C 3D printer. Neither interest projected beyond using the printer sometimes and flying the drone once a week. Not a super deep rabbit hole if you buy a tool made for the job; 3D printing with the Bambu is very reliable and it’s comparable to baking bread. Keep your ingredients dry and use the appliance to make the thing, follow instructions and it works almost perfectly every time.

Compared to like an Ender 3 which is a hobby rather than an appliance. You could tinker forever with one of the cheap printers to try and get it to work.

[tardy steeple]

Very true . The bambu is more or less print and go

[jolly ruin]

I see a bunch of nodes with the (MQTT) suffixed. I thought that was maybe automatically applied which would be cool - but I guess not? I was looking at Bambu also - they seem to be highly recommended.

[toxic shard]

Which nodes? I haven’t seen that

[toxic shard]

No, he's saying it was suffixed with (MQTT), not that it was marked MQTT in the node info

[tardy steeple]

Ooo

[toxic shard]

@jolly ruin are you on android?

[fierce moss]

yea

[jolly ruin]

yes

[toxic shard]

Interesting choice by the andoid app

So those aren't part of the name, the app is appending that. You're seeing more of them now because a number of local and remote stations have connected to Gary's MQTT broker and are exchanging message traffic over the internet.

My JW+ node is only downlinking on the ConnNet channel, though it's not clear which types of messages the channel specifier affects.

@jolly ruin do you have the ConnNet channel?

[jolly ruin]

negative

[tardy steeple]

Yeah, I was actually thinking about picking up a cheaper android phone or tablet just so I can know what goes on and the devices so I’m at least knowledgeable

[jolly ruin]

aye - what i don't like about the IOS version is you need atleast version 17 which makes a lot of the older iphones i have laying around useless :/

[fierce moss]

yea

i brought that up and was told i was the only one who had that issue lol

[severe quest]

+1 of a Bambu X1C, it's the only printer I've had that I've had to do zero tinkering with, it just works

[toxic shard]

I hear ya. I get it though, modern OS features make the dev life easier and if you want forward progress you gotta give up something

[fierce moss]

lot of devices on ios 16

[toxic shard]

Less every day

I wouldn't have made the call when they did, but I would have made it not too long from now

[fierce moss]

well a whole lot stuck there. and jailbreak users on 16

but android tablets for just meshtastic and aprs are cheap

[toxic shard]

True true

Or run the simulator

[fierce moss]

yea

[jolly ruin]

for the purpose of what meshtastic provides it would be a benefit to support older ios versions - low cost off grid messaging - everyone has an old phone laying around.

[fierce moss]

yea

[toxic shard]

And they'll have newer old phones soon

[jolly ruin]

then the reuquirement will be ios 19! 😆

[toxic shard]

Dev time is more limited than user legacy hardware is

Maybe someone will take the time to write a fork that aims for longer term hardware support. But I doubt it, people want the world from free software 🙂

2025 might be the Year of Linux on the Desktop 😉

[jolly ruin]

yea maybe it's just an IOS thing. android support goes back to 5.0/60 2014/2015 so there's always that option

[toxic shard]

Different devs, different platforms. I expect if Meshtastic grows we may see commercial iOS apps that offer better features and support, but who knows.

Sort of like RadioMail for WinLink or the APRS.fi app.

It'll probably be a subscription because everything is these days 😭

[severe quest]

I switched a few months ago, couldn't be happier!

[toxic shard]

I've been a linux user since Slackware in 1997. I couldn't possibly be bothered for my daily driver these days.

Some people can get more bang for the buck on linux desktops, some people enjoy the tinker more than I do. But for me Linux is best experienced through a command line

[void cape]

I’ve been using Linux for a long time but I can’t beat 1997 since that’s when I was born LOL

[toxic shard]

Looping back, perhaps if the Meshtastic Solutions initiative gets solidly funded by the work with hardware vendors, we'll see the software scene mature and have a more appealing target client device range

I'm not holding my breath though.

[toxic shard]

Back in my day we compiled our kernels from source and we LIKED IT

Like, we used telnet non-ironically

SSH was new fangled

[jolly ruin]

used to do that with gentoo, would take like a day or more

at least i think that was it... time flies

[fierce moss]

i mean i still compile kernel from source sometimes

lol

[void cape]

My router was compiling from source for quite some time until the driver patches for certain components finally made it into mainline. It was at the time a pretty bleeding edge ARM system.

Granted, I use NixOS on the router so there was minimal work for me to do that; I just specified the config I wanted to use and it built and installed the kernel for me each time I updated the system.

So they had these USB current meters on sale around Thanksgiving. Here’s my t-beam 1.1 doing something

It’s not charging, that’s the normal usage!!

[fierce moss]

lol

where did you get the meter?

[void cape]

Amazon

Okay. Here’s one without the battery and the screen. Check out that power usage!

[void cape]

Ugh. Discovery Dish delivery delayed to January next year.

[toxic shard]

I had a kickstarter fail to deliver because the guy died. Puts delays into perspective for the others i've backed. This one took like 3 years or more https://limbo.top/?srsltid=AfmBOorPgopCLq79DtViEwt6sVAu5y7AT1M_CzPD7t7iH6hrhchapndx

[void cape]

I have some trust in this one because I have other products from them that they kickstarted before.

I have the KrakenSDR and they had the KerberosSdr prior to that.

[tardy steeple]

You know about two years ago I was talking to somebody and they said oh meshtastic should be a Kickstarter project.

[void cape]

lol

Meshtastic is software. They don’t make their own hardware.

It would be like having a kickstarter for the Linux kernel lol

[tardy steeple]

Can you print the wismesh pocket case for me in black

[tardy steeple]

So for the last week I’ve been tearing my office and room apart looking for a button and a screw for my h2t

Gave up on it messaged muzi and he shipped me replacements

Just found them

🤦‍♀️

Far left the bag is stuck in the hinge of the case

[fierce moss]

@potent ravine would something like this be ok?
For the highland ave tower.

ill put the node and antenna on the far end. premount it all.

[toxic shard]

that's hot

[tardy steeple]

https://tenor.com/view/paris-hilton-thats-hot-hot-gif-4269087

[toxic shard]

I didn't buy a single node this week 🥹

(I bought 3 😥 )

FUCK, 4

[tardy steeple]

You want a tdeck plus for 55? lol

[toxic shard]

Not this week!

💸

[toxic shard]

Pretty sweet deal https://www.amazon.com/OKMO-LiFePO4-Lithium-rechargeable-Protection/dp/B0DHHF576Y

[fierce moss]

Yea that’s not bad.

[rare mulch]

Nice! Waiting for mine to come in. I strongly suspect that the firmware to be lacking.

[tardy steeple]

Yeah, I ordered mine pre-order and it didn’t come with anything programmed at all. I had to reach out to their support and I had do it myself .

I just found this on AliExpress: $5.64 | Acrylic Case for Seeed Studio XIAO Expansion board
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrgQTk3

[tardy steeple]

@toxic shard do you have the link for that usb style wall plug node ?

[toxic shard]

I don’t know what you mean, sorry.

[tardy steeple]

It was a device powered by a Apple wall plug

[potent ravine]

Im not sure id have to ask my boss about it.

[fierce moss]

Ok. Just let me know what would work best. Building out the node this week hopefully

[potent ravine]

Take your time. We dont have any scheduled maintenance coming up any time soon

[tardy steeple]

Found it

https://www.reddit.com/r/functionalprint/comments/18wud6l/ac_powered_esp32_enclosure_printable_housing_that/

[fierce moss]

Ok

[steady solar]

So I feel like I'm missing a side of this conversation

[tardy steeple]

https://github.com/artiommocrenco/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter

[void cape]

It would certainly seem so. BS2 is a node across the street from me; I’ll check if my node got both sides of the convo.

[toxic shard]

MQTT vs RF I think.

[steady solar]

Were you in bantam down the street from me today or was your node going for a little GPS walk 😂

[void cape]

I was in Kent. I did drive through Bantam but it probably didn’t pick up that I was out there since I was in the valley

[errant minnow]

(Jim - WB1ELG) Greetings from Stratford!

[vital pond]

If you went by Mount Tom Pond you should have picked up my node.

[toxic shard]

On October 25th I put a fully charged 12.8v nominal 20Ah LFP battery on SOL via the RAK Green Power module. It appears to have depleted as of Dec 1st or so. Interesting.

[tardy steeple]

Rack green power ?

[toxic shard]

It’s their dc-dc converter

For solar over 5v, wind, other non-grid sources

I expected it to last longer.

[tardy steeple]

Just looked it up , didn’t know they had that .

[toxic shard]

I need it swap the LFP and test the drained one to see if it’s actually drained or if it the BMS cut it off

[tardy steeple]

Hey neighbor. Right over by Blue goose diner

[errant minnow]

@tardy steeple Howdy J.

[tardy steeple]

I had a part from https://www.etsy.com/shop/MagicGrowingShop

he’s been offline had a death in family

[nimble vale]

sent you a DM btw

[rare mulch]

I am missing ALL the conversation. It's clearly an antenna problem. 10dbi is not the right one.

(Also, I like my little solar only esp32 node. No battery, just a little capacitor.
My little heltec is a fairweather friend who only comes out when the sun is strongest.)

[toxic shard]

I’m seeing your a230 here

[toxic shard]

So the spent battery was at 10.8v. Swapped with a fresh one.

Blew the fuse charging it because I forgot I put a very conservative 1amp fuse in. But I’ve got no reason right now to think the fuse blew before I tried to charge it (as in while deployed on the node)

Is Winterhold anyone here?

[steady solar]

10dbi way too flat especially where you have yours. I'd try 5 or less to start

I can bring in a couple ones for you to test tomorrow if you want @rare mulch

[rare mulch]

^^ just tested my new 5dbi alpha.

dang, which is now on sale!

[steady solar]

Did you say you have a nanovna?

[rare mulch]

lol, you keep asking me that. you should buy one

[steady solar]

I can bring mine if you want to test swr on your antennas. A lot of the cheapo antennas are not actually tuned for the frequency they advertise

[rare mulch]

i feel there there is a whole rabbit hole here to explore

perhaps that could be my winter project 😹

[toxic shard]

ALFA is usually good on frequency but sometimes their gain claims are not under typical installations

[tardy steeple]

Not sure if that’s how it works ?

@fierce moss

[fierce moss]

yes

thats the only relay till we find a mesh path

[tardy steeple]

Ok I’ll have to go find a wall plug or something tomorrow .

[toxic shard]

Hanging out in Windsor this week. So far nada for nodes up here

[tardy steeple]

I’ll be up that way tomorrow. Gonna go pop some rounds off

[steady solar]

There's definitely one in North Windsor on a roof, between 91 and the Connecticut River

[toxic shard]

Making a bit of a setup for my car. Going to use a G2 powered by an 20Ah LFP battery which gets recharged by the car's 12v via an LFP charger when the car is on. Should be a fun little build.

[jolly ruin]

I think I'm going to attempt that stealth solar light node build - anyone try that yet?

[fierce moss]

ha

[fierce moss]

nice!

my setup kept dying because i work from home lol

but it fires up when i get in so it's all good

[toxic shard]

Too $$ for my tastes (don't laugh) but this is interesting https://rigexpert.com/amplifiers/915mpa-bi-directional-power-amplifier/

[fierce moss]

so, ive seen a few

that one included

unless you are going to run it as a HAM in the 915 range (non-encrypted and not on normal mesh), or unless you are just dealing with coax loss, it's TECHNICALLY against FCC

[toxic shard]

This is out of stock but interesting https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Supporting-IEEE802-3bt-Configuration-Low-Power/dp/B0B4VQ9154

would be good for a G2

[fierce moss]

if it

s a 100mbps, i wouldnt trust the internals to not be cheap crap

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CHW5K5F4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

that is what you want

[toxic shard]

They've got faster ones, this one is focused on power. G2 needs 15v USB PD

[fierce moss]

oooh G2, youre right.

[toxic shard]

For a RAK or whatever, totally with you

[fierce moss]

my brain was thinking pi

[toxic shard]

I want to put a Pi and a G2 in a room with some whiskey and wait for my dream child

[fierce moss]

i'd grab an older passive Unifi Injector

again, just for the quality

[toxic shard]

Passive could work for sure.

I don't have a PoE G2 need right this moment, but I'm sure I will eventually.

[fierce moss]

problem is it has buttons

so remote power doesnt help you if you need to do things with it

a Pi can be power cycled and PXE boot

[toxic shard]

What do you need the buttons for?

[fierce moss]

updating it. fixing it if it has problems. etc

need the button for DFU mode

[toxic shard]

Pretty sure I've triggered JTAG mode using the flasher only, but it's been a bit. I'll pay closer attention next time

[fierce moss]

with what though? a usb cable?

[toxic shard]

yeah

[fierce moss]

that means you need access to the device again

[toxic shard]

Yup

[fierce moss]

so negates the purpose of a way-up-high poe setup

[toxic shard]

I hear ya, no doubt. I think I'm picturing a "accessible if I need it" outdoor location

[fierce moss]

ahh

my pi is up on my barn roof. theoretically i should never have to go up there unless the radio burns out. and no SD card to die either

[toxic shard]

That is very very slick

But "Gary's Magic Pi Board" isn't a product 🙂

[fierce moss]

haha

it almost is lol... just a little 3d printing and soldering...

and a PXE server buildout

[tardy steeple]

Actually, I think I have that exact one

https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1315820062577266718

[toxic shard]

Nice

[toxic shard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f8ykF_trxE

[toxic shard]

Fudge someone set up a router

[tardy steeple]

What’s wrong with that ?

[severe quest]

Went to NYC over the weekend, didn't even pick up one node, I figured NYC would have a bunch

[fierce moss]

Hrmm. Where?

NYC has a crap ton.

Router giving off a gps? Info?

They’ll be on the mesh at least. Shouldn’t be hard to get ahold of them as

[tardy steeple]

My ex is walking around the city now about to hop on the train back home and hasn’t made contacts

[fierce moss]

Is she actively transmitting every 5 min? Or just hoping for random beacons?

[tardy steeple]

She keeps pulling out the t desk plus and attempting

[void cape]

Signal propagation in cities like NYC is surprisingly garbage.

I lived near DC for a while and office towers completely obliterated signal coverage in the 2M to 1G range.

There’s so much metal and rebar involved that you might as well be in a faraday cage

2GHz signals can do about a floor or two of 4” concrete with rebar, 2m and 70cm was basically unusable, and 900MHz only did 3-4 floors.

[severe quest]

around 81st st and then down to 10th st and even around rockerfeller

[void cape]

I only show one node in Manhattan proper and it’s in the north end… not sure if what planes see means much

[tardy steeple]

Anyone ever see a rak expansion /Pcb board .

I tried to describe it. It was square and it had a power input and then it had three other spots where the GST connectors were. I believe they were for like a buzzer or something else.

I’ve been looking all over Etsy eBay and a few other websites. I saw it and now I just can’t find it.

[rare mulch]

https://store.rakwireless.com/collections/wisblock-base

[tardy steeple]

It was someone in the community

[toxic shard]

https://meshtastic.org/blog/choosing-the-right-device-role/

[tardy steeple]

I assumed he knew what he was doing

[fierce moss]

Nice!

[tardy steeple]

A lot to do and so little time .

I’m trying to debate if I wanna take that rack out of the acrylic case or just keep it how it is and mount it into their

[toxic shard]

I would not assume that

Anyone know KA1BMF?

(Hamden)

[fierce moss]

Depends on the plastic. If you think it can take moderate heat from the project box in the sun, the. Leave it

Clean install

Unless you have a 3D printer and can print ABS or PETG

PETG is more than fine for those temps.

You can do all your mounts on a printer.

Those should be 5mm spaced holes. Just use calipers and measure the boards.

My wisblock mount stl is on thingiverse

[toxic shard]

#announcements message

https://forms.gle/fiWrniiZSg3sydAh7

[tardy steeple]

I don’t know why the class sign looks familiar

[craggy vigil]

Seeed studio xiao esp32s3 Did you try upgrading the FW on these - I'm not having any luck so far.

[lethal spade]

I know that guy. It’s me!

[toxic shard]

Nice! Welcome!

I’m KC1SPC. When I try to message your CT-M node I get an encryption error. Are you on a 2.5 firmware?

Was that node up in Bristol?

This is what I was seeing

When that happened to me sending to K1HFZ, I had him turn off ham mode and it fixed it.

[lethal spade]

I was up in Bristol, but I have Ham mode off.

[toxic shard]

Perhaps my node saw you before when it was on, and hasn’t seen your node info since to see it is off. Are you up that way often? Are you on a 2.5 firmware version?

[lethal spade]

Yep, running 2.5.x. I do get messages from people, but I may have been out of range by the time you hit me.

Nice work hitting me up on WinLink. My nearby WinLink gateway was down so I hit one up further north while running errands so I could check in to WinLink Wednesday

[toxic shard]

I saw winlink on your qrz page and figured you’d be checking it before long

The nodes named “Unwin” something are me. Also the “OCTO” ones are mine for a work “project”

A bunch of the Berlin ones are nodes I’ve given to friends or hams in the area. Except for those of W1ERB, he was self-indoctrinated into Meshtastic

[tardy steeple]

They actually mailed me a new one mine wasn’t working or anything

Jessie in seeed discord

[lethal spade]

I get an APRS message when I have a pending WinLink message to download.

[fierce moss]

With 2.5, if you saw his node, and then he did any key reset, it takes FOREVER for the old key to expire

[toxic shard]

I get that if I’ve beaconed recently on APRS, which I’ve been slacking on

[fierce moss]

You basically have to delete his node from the DB

[toxic shard]

I don’t think it’s a key mismatch. I think it’s my node or my client thinking he’s ham mode no encryption

[fierce moss]

Ah

Same thing really. Delete his node

[toxic shard]

I checked JW+ MeshSense and it says CT-M is not in licensed mode, so it must be CARD or my phone client

[fierce moss]

From your db

[toxic shard]

I’m confident your solution would work. I want to see how it resolves without that. My main reason for messaging was to get him in here, so mission accomplished

[toxic shard]

@lethal spade how many nodes do you have?

[lethal spade]

Just one

[toxic shard]

Gotcha. Do you have “Ok to MQTT” enabled on the LoRa settings?

[jolly ruin]

be me.. spend an hour hunting for any electronics I can cannibalize to steal a jst ph2 connector for this rak board. give up and order 10 pairs on Amazon.

[tardy steeple]

Branford hobbies used to have them . Not sure if they still do

[jolly ruin]

There used to be a spot called Cables and Connectors on the Berlin Tpke. They had a lot of stuff. I wonder if Radio Shack would have carried them if they were still around. In this area Amazon is good with most things being next or two day, but nothing beats a quick drive down the road when working on something.

[toxic shard]

I've got a big stash of the JSTs for nodes. Worth having some. Adafruit also has some good packs. Just be mindful that RAK and Heltec use different orientation for the JSTs, always check the polarity and for all that is holy use red for positive and black for negative.

It's a shame there's no place like RadioShack of old where you can go and get the part you need and be back at the bench tinkering in an hour.