US - Connecticut.

[radiant sequoia]

did someone climb a tree on ragged?

[fervent sky]

No idea

Up time says 8 days though

[radiant sequoia]

trace from my house went to turkey, then there and back was mithras to overlook to me....

😫

[toxic shard]

Traces are fun, but the real metric is was the message received. To me a solid "Acknowledged" on a message is the real measure of if I can reach a node. But sometimes they receive it and you just don't receive the reply for a number of reasons.

There is a "Neighbor Info" module you can enable which will have your node tell the mesh periodically who it can hear.

[jolly ruin]

Mithras location is mostly accurate - Solar Node - "Temporary" position while doing some testing.

[radiant sequoia]

I guess I was wondering about location.... as in someone climbed a tree on Ragged....

😆

[jolly ruin]

no harm was done to the tree 🌳

[radiant sequoia]

hahahaha ok

[fierce moss]

“I just heard a rumor and confirmed with with Rockland and the US versions of this DOES NOT have the temperature feature, only the UK versions.

Rokland LLC
04:35 PM
The US version only has a standard JST 2.0 battery port with no temperature shut down
That feature is required for importing into the UK, I am not sure if it will eventually be added in the US. Battery options for such a type are limited in the US right now.”

[void cape]

Do they have a 400MHz version for the UK that you can use on the ham band? Not ideal, but cool

[toxic shard]

ewww

[tardy steeple]

Uk always has better stuff and features and also food and drinks too.

[jolly ruin]

someone tested from Satan's Kingdom earlier in primary longfast channel with a 0000 node. that's a great number..

[fierce moss]

ummm

definitely NOT food and drinks....

food in most of the UK is horrible

ive been to england, scottland and ireland. The only worthwhile food/drink was the native Guinness in ireland.

[toxic shard]

Scotland is ok depending on your drink of choice 🥃

[fierce moss]

If you’re including liquor, sure. Jameson is in Ireland too. I was more talking about food and drink your body can utilize to survive on. Not drink you need to survive the bad food 😆

[toxic shard]

Trying to get a friend on the mesh from Terryville. He's had a T-Beam Supreme of mine going for a bit, not much luck. But I think it's been borked for a bit and I'm going to swap it for him with something else.

There is an "AL Home Base" node I see pretty often near there via Chippanee. Not sure if they'd see eachother.

We're going to try a solar node on his second floor deck next.

[fierce moss]

I need mqtt to chip sometime this week to fix the location

[toxic shard]

I happen to be working from home right now so I can reconnect. Same node as before, but now called "FIRM"

Noticed the web client now lets you filter the node list, nice pace of progress

@fierce moss does the mqtt root matter?

[toxic shard]

@fierce moss Saw your message on your meshsense, but didn't received it on my end.

[fierce moss]

ooh that was you

root does matter. 1 sec

msh/US/GAFnet

[toxic shard]

changing it now

[fierce moss]

i think its in the pinned topic

[toxic shard]

you expect me to read??

[fierce moss]

lol

[toxic shard]

😉

we need a nice ctmesh website so we're cool like those pioneer valley people

[fierce moss]

yea

[toxic shard]

"nutmegsh" is another name, but it might need workshopping

[fierce moss]

and to find out how they are still leaking into our mesh lol

ok. i can talk to it. let me do some maintenance real quick

[toxic shard]

We might need to start ignoring pre 2.5 nodes at some point

[fierce moss]

yea

[toxic shard]

There are a couple of nodes from people here in Plainville who I don't know that haven't updated. That's why I named FIRM that way, to passive agressively nudge them

though I doubt they're monitoring their nodes

ok, looks like i'm connected on the right path now

[fierce moss]

yea

i was able to get packets backa nd forth to chip

there we go... should be rebooting now

i dont know why these nodes loose their static gps locations...

maybe its been fixed

i havent been reading patch notes

[toxic shard]

I found this entirely on my own with no credit to anyone else 😉 and it's my guess as to why we're losing settings #firmware message

[fierce moss]

hrmmm

could be

[toxic shard]

Do you know what version chip is on?

[fierce moss]

hrmm.. let me look

rebooting 1 more time. can be disconnected now if you like

[toxic shard]

I'll keep it connected for a bit, see if anything makes me wish it wasn't.

[fierce moss]

im not getting too much garbage

a little PV traffic here and there. mostly, im hearing Chip reach out to me

its just not hearing me

[toxic shard]

I see stuff reaching you via MQTT (like @tardy steeple's stuff) already over RF, so MQTT doesn't change that for me

[fierce moss]

which the new node will eventually fix

yea. it's just not 100% reliable yet

but theres some pathing starting

people are filling in the gaps. which is nice. We just need to bring them into the fold and help them build proper base stations

and keep it to client mode

who owns that "mother" node?

it picks up a lot of PV traffic

[jolly ruin]

MTHR ? 👋

[fierce moss]

Heya! Do you have mqtt on there ?

Just wondering how it’s hitting PV. Or is it that high up?

I still don’t know how I get errant packets either lol

[jolly ruin]

no mqtt - yes high up with a good view north

i might be repositioning it soon though, I was trying to open up access over to Berlin a bit more, but it seems Turkey Hill might be doing an OK job of that, but I think maybe moving it south a bit more might be more beneficial.

[fierce moss]

gotcha.

im happy all the rak nodes are doing fine so far this winter with solar charging

i figure with 4 18650s, they are charging and discharging so slow it doesnt mater much

with the cold

[fierce moss]

i think its 2.5.13

[toxic shard]

yeah it's been interesting to watch.

[tardy steeple]

Tbeam supreme has a solar port no ?

I inquired about the wismesh repeater and its existence was denied .

https://store.rakwireless.com/products/wismesh-repeater

[void cape]

My mother walked into the kitchen and she's like "Oh, I've got to get a picture of this insanity" while I've got the satellite dish and the laptop set up to try and get some GOES16 imagery

cmake reports that I'm 57% done building satdump

[toxic shard]

lol

[void cape]

Unfortunately, it looks like I need to wait for the cloud cover to go away to test

With the dish outside and oriented in the correct direction, I'm only getting -60dB of noise signal... according to the manufacturer you need at least +1dB to be able to reliably decode and the maximum for this dish is somewhere around 7dB in ideal conditions. So I suspect that tonight's cloud cover is far more than this can handle, unfortunately.

I don't really know if that's the reason, but tomorrow I can't blame it on the clouds lol

My other suspicion is that the RTL-SDR's bias tee isn't working properly.

At some point after this is working, I'll probably put the dish, a t-beam, a rasperry pi, and a 17 foot tall 2m base station antenna on the roof of the house in one go.

I suspect that I'll be running some form of power into the box on the side of the house but I'm not sure if it'll be 12VDC from a battery pack in the basement or something else.

[toxic shard]

17 foot 2m antenna?

[void cape]

Yeah. It’s pretty ridiculous, you could probably tune it and use it for like 10m instead lol

[void cape]

Its a Diamond X510HDM 2m/70cm band ham radio antenna

[fierce moss]

not that i know of...

its not solar hardware. too power hungry

[fierce moss]

nice!

[void cape]

Yeah, maybe tomorrow I’ll have satellite images to share

[tardy steeple]

I just have to give my wife cheese and I can buy more Meshtastic stuff

[fierce moss]

i have a 17ft 2m antenna just sitting in my barn lol

dunno what to do with it

[fierce moss]

its nice theres a solid retail option for people now.

[tardy steeple]

Is jousting still a thing ?

[fierce moss]

anything can still be a thing if you do it

[toxic shard]

Not if they're in the US, shipping is like $45 lol. Eventually it'll get stocked by someone here.

[fierce moss]

ahh

[toxic shard]

As happy as I am at the growth of our mesh, it does feel like it's not working well really if considered with regard to DM acks and traceroute results. Maybe it's just my experience.

[void cape]

I miss a lot of messages on the mesh

I think that suboptimal routing decisions are inflating hop count unnecessarily resulting in spotty delivery.

I get some messages from far away sometimes

[toxic shard]

maybe this will help #general message

Before 2.6.0 they are very similar.
Basically all messages are flooded based on SNR ||or RSSI I don't remember||, nodes with poor reception gets to relay it first as presumably they are farther away, clients don't relay if they heard someone else relay.
Exception being if you are the target of a DM you will "instantly" reply and other peoples will stop trying to relay a DM if they heard the reply.
After 2.6.0 DMs nodes remember from which neighbor they heard certain nodes. So let's say you hear a message from AAA relayed by BBB, if you then want to send a DM to AAA you will send it on the air with a note: « BBB will be the one relaying this message » so DMs should aim more efficiently towards where you are rather than being broadcasted.

[toxic shard]

What is the primary node you monitor?

So I've. been planning to build a G2-based car node using a 20Ah LFP battery, a DC-DC charger, fuse block, etc etc. I probably still will eventually, but for now I'm using the G2 off this and recharging this from my car's USB port. We'll see if I drive enough to keep it charged. https://www.jackery.com/products/jackery-explorer-100-plus-portable-power-station

(I got it free in a promotion)

That's the new JWG2 node you might see, replacing the T-Echo "JW" node.

[tardy steeple]

That is terrible

Pop ups , stupid video pop up. Screen over lay over lapping

[toxic shard]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[fierce moss]

china review? lol

i think the mesh will stabilize. we just need to keep helping people setup proper base stations at houses instead of firing up their heltecs in their living room once a week

but 2.6 sounds nice

the more optimal placement we get our actuals in, the better too

and probably be on the lookout for people in router mode who shouldnt be to help explain

[void cape]

KO4TSM 40bc

It’s a Station G2, stock except for updated firmware and I’ve got a couple sensors hooked in over I2C

[tardy steeple]

I’ve heard from more then one person the g2 sucks on receiving but is great with transmitting

[void cape]

I usually get a hop from dd_router because I can’t get out of the valley I’m in and GAF0 isn’t tall enough to go direct

So before I get to Terryville, I’ve already lost two hops

I have it set for 7 but PVEC packets would probably not make it to me in most cases if they have it at 3

[toxic shard]

If someone's G2 is sucking on receiving, they've got a problem on their side.

Maybe they need to turn OFF the RX Gain setting, they could be receiving too well

[toxic shard]

From me at work it seems to need MQTT (or, if not need, MQTT was used in this trace)

(on the way out, after d85c, it's likely entering FIRM and going MQTT to Gary since I enabled that path yesterday)

[fierce moss]

Yea. Torr to chip sometimes works. Chip to torr doesn’t normally

So you get the back path over mqtt

I just got my cavity filter in the mail

Going to put it on the Rak for the Torrington tower node

Since there will be a lot of other RF around it.

[toxic shard]

good call

[toxic shard]

hey @tardy steeple SL68 seems to be sending it's position more than it needs to

[fierce moss]

10800 seconds is 3 hours. I find that to be plenty

[toxic shard]

maybe something is asking for it that i'm not seeing

[void cape]

It might have smart update enabled; notice how the GPS altitude is hopping all over the place.

[toxic shard]

I hand't noticed that, good point.

[tardy steeple]

I can update later

[toxic shard]

Just wanted you to be aware. If it’s in a fixed location the updates aren’t needed as often.

I’m trying to keep my nodes from chattering too much, especially the always on fixed location ones.

I’ve still got work to do.

[toxic shard]

@safe plank is MeshLife-TBeam2 doing MQTT?

Asking because I noticed this path and it seems impossible otherwise

[fierce moss]

I dont have an account for meshlife

on mine

[toxic shard]

Most of the MeshLife nodes have been north, in West Hartford. So it seems unlikely they're relaying south to the shore.

Thus, the mystery.

That trace was last night, btw

You know what, the path could be that tbeam then into Codefast's cfex mqtt node. I've found that sometimes it relays into mqtt without showing up in the trace

[fierce moss]

whats his cfex node?

just curious

[toxic shard]

As in it's hardware?

I think it's a pi.

@hoary oxide can you chime in when you get a chance?

Fired up Meshsense on FILT today and it's already seen all this. Just impressed with the core of our mesh and hopeful we can keep growing it and making it more reliable to communication

There's probably another 40% more nodes it hasn't seen/positioned yet. And lots of paths not seen. But that's like an hour.

[fierce moss]

yea. rate limited to 1 trace a min

unless you modify the firmware....

lol

[safe plank]

I don’t believe so unless it was enabled during a .18 upgrade, will check tonight

All my nodes are in West Hartford(for now) with the exception of MeshLife-TBeam1 and MeshLife-Card1 , that travel all over the state

[toxic shard]

Naw, it's never enabled by default. I think your node relayed over RF and cfex silently gated it into MQTT where it made it's way down to the shore.

[void cape]

Satellite dish is working since last night

Still need to do a more permanent install

[void cape]

Even with an inch of snow on the dish, still works pretty well

[toxic shard]

very cool. Now get me Showtime

[jolly ruin]

i remember back in the 90's i ordered one of those 'build your own descrambler' plans found in the back of magazines in the classifieds.. most parts could be bought at radio shack minus this key part. the variable capacitor that you could adjust. needless to say that shit didnt' work. my old man ended up just buying one for like a hundred bux. good times.

[fierce moss]

yea, OLD OLD scrambled tv was analog

that was what those were for

digital cable changed that

ironically, the best way to grab things in real time today is using 1980's usenet services

just over tcp, using ssl, and behind a vpn lol

[jolly ruin]

nzb ftw

[rare mulch]

Upcycled old tablet from 2013 reincarnated as solar node.

[toxic shard]

Up in Windsor again and it's a barren wasteland, mesh-wise.

So sad

Emailed AC1V to see about hosting a node here https://www.qrz.com/db/AC1V

[void cape]

My dad is up in Windsor but I doubt that he'd operate a node for me.

he's a bit afraid of tech in some ways

It's kinda amazing, the connecticut connect channel is more busy than Seattle Washington or the Bay Area based on message counts

we're at over 8k

[toxic shard]

we're blabbermouths

[cedar storm]

Any nodes around the greater bridgeport area?

[void cape]

I hear these over mqtt

[toxic shard]

https://www.reddit.com/r/18650masterrace/s/y8QJp6b5sD

Good advice

[toxic shard]

@tardy steeple is the most active down there.

[toxic shard]

must have been an update to the macOS app. It's now showing me OS notifications when a traceroute completes. Never seen that before

[hidden timber]

Yeah it does that for me too in the iOS app. But the macOS app & iOS app are likely the same codebase

also, hello. 👋 been lurking here for a while. live in vernon, and you may have seen me on the mesh while traveling around the state :)

[toxic shard]

Hi Noah! What are your nodes called?

What other nodes can you see from over there?

[steady solar]

We have a node going up in a big tall tree come springtime in Windsor

[toxic shard]

Nice

[hidden timber]

all of them have Noah in the name pretty much. MHC1 is also me. i plan on experimenting with putting up some urban solar nodes around the area once the weather gets warmer.

i pick up a few in passing, but it's scarce east of hartford

would love to help bridge the gap!

[toxic shard]

I don't currently have any Noah nodes or MHC1 in my node history. It does ring a bell though.

What kind of nodes are you using / liking? Built or bought?

[hidden timber]

Interesting. I've seen your nodes when passing through the farmington/bristol area

I've got 2 Muzi R1's (one with internal antenna, one with external), a LILYGO T-Beam Supreme (MHC1), and a LILYGO T-Echo

Planning for the solar nodes to be mostly comprised of parts from rokland

[toxic shard]

Nice. I've got a Muzi H2T that I like a lot, but it's not one I use often

[hidden timber]

i like the R1 with built-in antenna. looks like a vape 😂 but it's range is pretty poor. works great as a daily carry in conjunction with a car node or base station

the h2t looks cool, pretty much the same idea as the R1 but with GPS and a screen, and runs the heltec instead of rak

[toxic shard]

All, heads up 2.5.20 is stable and on the flasher

[toxic shard]

Heah, but it's the same nRF52 chip as RAK so it's got good battery life (both run out quicker if using a GPS)

Unlike the other heltec boards afaik

@hidden timber have you used HeyWhatsThat.com to feel out Line-of-Sight from your location to see where you'd likely be able to reach?

(meshtastic recently released another tool for that, but it's heftier and harder to use)

[hidden timber]

I've taken a quick look at that but haven't gotten very far with it yet

[toxic shard]

It's pretty easy, do "New Panorama", put in your address or find the spot on the map and click it, put in an elevation above the ground, give the panorama a name and submit. It'll take a sec and then give you a map

It's also useful for scouting around. There's a "move to highest point within X distance" feature if you want to kind of work your way up to a higher point.

[hidden timber]

very cool

and yall have found this to be a pretty accurate representation of lora range?

[toxic shard]

Depends. I think of it more like a ballpark. If it's actually clear air between two points, LoRa will work. If there's structures and folliage, it'll be less far.

Also Noah, Gary here has his MeshSense app online so we can see what it sees. Can be useful: https://meshsense.wg4ry.com/

I use MeshSense too, but mine's just on my own wifi

Some of the links shown are MQTT (like down to the shore), some are long-haul unreliable connections up to the PVEC folks in western mass, but most are good, fairly solid local paths

[hidden timber]

oh hey, same.

[hidden timber]

very cool

[toxic shard]

nice. So you're sometimes seeing random nodes, right? If so you've likely got a standard configuration that should work with most other people. Some folks have issues if they set a custom primary channel and don't adjust the frequency slot, or if they change the key on the channel, or if they set it to "licensed" mode

[hidden timber]

yep, total of 80 that i've come across on my daily carry. looks like 28 total on MHC1

most of the time i've got nobody around though :( lol

[toxic shard]

I think with an outdoor node you'd probably be able to hit GFR2 (Chippanee) or Mithras from there, two of our best placed nodes. But it all depends on the specifics of your location.

[hidden timber]

yeah unfortunately even MHC1 is inside, in an exterior closet of one of the buildings. it's pretty high up but not perfectly ideal. best i could do at my current place

[toxic shard]

Actually it looks like Chip only gets the south side of Vernon

[hidden timber]

ahhh

if the HAM guys could put one on the box mountain tower....

[toxic shard]

Getting better though, a couple more well placed nodes and I think you'll get in

hehe, sure that'd be nice!

One tip for MeshSense, there's a bug where sometimes traceroutes show the nodes at each end swapped.

In that case, that's BS1 tracing to my node FIRM. But the MeshSense I've got connected to FIRM doesn't deal with being the recipient of the trace properly and presents it as if IT had sent the trace

The trace makes sense if BS1 is on the left and FIRM is on the right.

[hidden timber]

that's confusing lol

[toxic shard]

Just a bug. It's free open source software, can't judge it too harsh 🙂

[fierce moss]

I have an mqtt server for 2 users here.
As long as the intent is to build out via full RF soon, i could get you in.

We don’t want to add permanent mqtt. But to get you on the mesh, especially if you are like 1 new repeater away, is fine

[hidden timber]

hmm quite possibly. i have a couple of ideas in east hartford and intent to invest a bit on building some solar nodes, but that might be cool in the interrim

i do IT for a living and have a pretty good background in server stuff as well, if we need anything hosted i'd be happy to help :)

[tardy steeple]

Sorry haven’t been active , got the flu, it’s kicking my ass

[toxic shard]

Half the people in here have basically the same job profile. That's CT for you 😛

As for solar nodes, we've had good luck with the basic design here https://www.thecommschannel.com/meshtastic/parts/index.html

We've also had some discussions about the lessons presented here by the Austin Mesh https://www.austinmesh.org/devices/

[hidden timber]

Ah yeah, i've seen some of this lurking around 😜

[toxic shard]

If you like server stuff I recommend getting a MeshAdv Pi Hat and using that for your base

[tardy steeple]

I would disagree . There are valid vendors and business on both ebay and Amazon . Personally I’ll only use 18650batterystore.com tho

[hidden timber]

this is what i came up with so far. i like the box with the integrated solar panel, may be easier to manage for an inconspicuous urban node

[toxic shard]

I've had bad luck with Unify boxes, they're not as weatherproof as they should be, and you can't easily access the USB

[hidden timber]

though i will likely go with the larger solar enclosure because i found recently that battery won't fit in there. was half way through researching that and got distracted, which is my biggest problem these days lol

[toxic shard]

(Unwin SOL is the larger Unify box, I haven't opened it up recently to check)

[tardy steeple]

Don’t get that solar . You will regret it get the other one where the panel is across the entire top

[toxic shard]

I want to like the unify boxes, because they're pretty easy and lots of do-dads for mounting them different ways

but I've poured water out of them, so ymmv

[hidden timber]

oof.

could maybe silicone it or something 🤔

[toxic shard]

I'm not sure if it was the gasket around the lip or if the solar panel leaked

Honestly the USB port being inaccessible even when the lid is removed has turned me off entirely

[hidden timber]

ohh yeah i've seen people put duct tape over the wires that come into the box from the panel

[toxic shard]

The design Gary uses (similar to the comms channel) is more robust

But uglier. Like Gary

(I don't know what Gary looks like, but i'm assuming a rugged dirty hill farmer)

[hidden timber]

lmao

[toxic shard]

I've got a couple of nodes in the works of similar design, but winter killed my motivation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3UluaqfTw

[tardy steeple]

I have a node to build but haven’t left my couch in three days other then to use bathroom l

[toxic shard]

Better than not having left the bathroom in three days

[hidden timber]

i've watched that one haha

[tardy steeple]

Never had the flu before . This sucks

[fierce moss]

Never?? How old are you? lol

[hidden timber]

fr, wth

[tardy steeple]

37 . lol

[toxic shard]

There's getting the flu, then there's getting the FLU. Sometimes it just knocks your socks off

My order for this came in today: https://atlavox.com/products/atlavox-beacon-solar-meshtastic-node

[tardy steeple]

Nice

[fierce moss]

Nice

[hidden timber]

Nice

[toxic shard]

Noah this is the hat I was mentioning. It's out of stock right now with a crazy price to keep people from ordering it until stock is in. Don't let that sticker shock you. It's $60 and they should have some on the 10th. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1849074257/meshadv-pi-hat-v11-fully-assembled-1

It's 1W, which works well if you have a little bit of Coax to connect the enclosure to a nice antenna. Works well with a POE splitter. Might work well with a POE hat, I think Gary does that with his homebrew hat.

[hidden timber]

haha i saw that and may have said out loud "what the fuck"

[toxic shard]

It's annoying on Etsy when there's no stock there's no page, so I've seen people do this between stock

[toxic shard]

It's kind of weird the date column is blank

[hidden timber]

tru, maybe it's a bug with the mac app. was going to dockerize it but the image is out of date and i ran into a problem getting it to connect to the node over tcp

it's also odd that it thinks my pocket node is anywhere nearby. i'm in east hartford right now. it just popped up when i remoted in

some of the nodes that have been seen periodically, btw

it's been chillin there for about a month, since i first started getting into it

have indeed picked up the great acres nodes at one time :)

through various hops, that is

[toxic shard]

Some chatter from Buckland Hills right now, not sure if you're seeing that

Have you updated MeshSense, lots of bugs have been fixed.

I can't get the mac version to run at home due to a bug in their BLE dependency library that needs updating. But I run the windows version and access it via the browser on my mac

[hidden timber]

didn't receive from east hartford nor vernon, but yeah that's close and another location i was thinking of maybe putting up a solar node somewhere haha

[hidden timber]

i believe i'm up to date –1.0.18, same version as Gary's running i noticed

[toxic shard]

yeah, that's current

might just need to restart it

[hidden timber]

ah yeah that fixed the date, haha

[fierce moss]

I think i updated allay week. I’ll look

Last*

[tardy steeple]

He does provide the files where you can have a PCB company make one , you would have to complete it tho

[toxic shard]

Good point

You could also get all mad scientist and etch your own PCB from the design, depending on the complexity.

[tardy steeple]

I can draw a mean stick figure

[tardy steeple]

I have an extra one of these along with a raspberry pi 4 . I was going to post them for 95 shipped together fully insured

[tardy steeple]

So is tropospheric ducting a thing with Meshtastic ? Node is 1320 miles away

[fierce moss]

900mhz at 100miliwatt? I’d say no… but rf is crazy

[tardy steeple]

I’ve seen some mobile radio operators do crazy things

[toxic shard]

More likely someone had a fixed position but actually moved their node. It’d be nice if the position reported its source.

[tardy steeple]

Do repeater nodes count as hops or are they transparent?

[fierce moss]

They count

[void cape]

They sometimes count

It depends on whether it parses before it repeats or not I think

If it doesn’t parse, it repeats verbatim which means the hop count would not be increased

[fierce moss]

I thought they always tagged the hop count

Just didn’t relay their nodeinfo

[void cape]

Yeah, the ALL_SKIP_DECODING mode

[toxic shard]

For some reason I noticed today my app has the cardinal directions like 180 off

Gary is northwest of me, or southeast. This used to be right.

Dodger is north, not south. Eric same problem.

[void cape]

Hahaha yep same here

[fervent sky]

Lmao 🤷🏻‍♂️ no idea

[toxic shard]

Pretty sure it’s an app problem on the client side, not a problem with the nodes reporting their position.

[void cape]

I didn’t update the nodes so not likely that

[void cape]

I don’t know if it could be more ridiculous or not..

[void cape]

I’m putting together that box for the satellite dish. I might actually throw a Meshtastic node in here too just for ha’s if I have the space. It’s going to be powered over PoE from my rack in the basement.

[fierce moss]

Nice!

[toxic shard]

I've heard those dongles get mighty hot in a box. Something to test, might need more ventelation

Could be a good thing in winter maybe lol

[hidden timber]

they get hot as fuck even outside a box. i've got a V2 (i think) in my cold garage and you could still fry an egg on it

[tardy steeple]

https://a.co/d/2AYFKqG

[void cape]

Yeah, not too worried about it. That’s just how the RTLSDR operates.

If the system crashes I’ll make adjustments :P

The Pi is going to be just fine at this, particularly since I’m not going to use the GUI version of satdump

And a Meshtastic node should be fine too.

[toxic shard]

At least add a temperature probe to log the data, for curiosity sake 🙂

[void cape]

I think the Pi has one

[toxic shard]

Was giving the meshtastic spiel to a coworker in Seattle and while checking to see if there was an active group there I happened upon this page which seems to be a seattle-centric version of Liam's map with a lot more nodes than Liam's official mqtt has. I think that's interesting. https://meshtastic.davekeogh.com/

[radiant sequoia]

seems like less and nothing around here... unless I'm missing it...

[toxic shard]

It's only for Seattle

People would need to configure for it specifically. It seems like they've got their own thing going on over there.

Liam:

Dave:

[tardy steeple]

Smells like...Victory! <que Ride of the Valkyries>

[visual mist]

Anyone on here in northwestern Hartford county? Avon / Canton / Simsbury / Granby area? I just picked up a pair of T1000-Es to mess around with, came in yesterday, and was able to see one node from my house in Simsbury, but I'm sitting at my office in southern Enfield with my node in a north-facing window and picking up nodes as far north as Hadley, so it has me excited to see what else I can pick up at home!!

[fierce moss]

heya!

here is my map of the current live mesh

https://meshsense.wg4ry.com/

We would love to expand up to avon area.

need some repeater/routers on avon mountain somewhere

[visual mist]

Yeah I was just looking at the map in the Meshtastic app and trying to figure out where the best location would be for routers to expand the mesh but I 100% didn't want to do anything before I got the lay of the land as to what already existed...been doing a bunch of reading up and as soon as I saw that too many routers in an area can actually degrade the mesh efficiency I knew it would be too easy for my ass to cause chaos and break something 🤣

[fierce moss]

the meshtastic map wont help too much...

lliam's map is good for nodes

but you need to use tools like this....

https://heywhatsthat.com/

to find Line of Sight

elevation and line of sight are EVERYTHING with Meshtastic

100milliamps doesnt penetrate much

[visual mist]

Glad I asked then!!

My plan was for my next step to be setting up a stationary client node at my house with a decent antenna, and see how far that can reach out...found one other node in town so far just sitting in my driveway for a few minutes before coming to work

Figure cut my teeth on that project then start looking into projects that require taking into account elevation / line of sight

Got a buddy over in Windsor that I might be helping to catch the bug too...picked him up a T1000-E as well 😎👍

[fierce moss]

nice!

own a home?

if you have a roof or tree or something decently tall, setup a base station.

lots of options

youll want to get an antenna and the node up as high as you can. Could even do a solar setup way up a tree or on the roof if cabling is hard.

Then use a client in the house on Client_Mute

lots to get into. but everyone here can help you plan the best setup for your location

[toxic shard]

I've got a node at a family place in Windsor, but it's first floor indoors right now, not seeing anything.

Welcome @visual mist this is a great group to get advice from, be it pre-built nodes, or DIY. Getting a node outside and above the roofline is the first big step. Even just outside on a pole is a good improvement. The T1000-Es are great for convenience but they don't get out far on their own. Terrific in your pocket when you're already within range of a good node. I've got one in my pocket right now in Bristol.

What are your nodes called? A bunch of us use a bit of a personal naming convention. Gary's nodes usually start with GF in their short name and have his callsign in the long name. Mine are usually prefixed with "Unwin" for personal projects.

[visual mist]

So far I've prefixed both of mine with "sixwombats" (an inside family joke)...not sure if I'll stick with that for additional nodes though...

@fierce moss Own the home but not sure how accepting my wife would be to have a big antenna tower on the property...plus we're in the woods surrounded by 50+ft old-growth trees so I'd have to get creative in my placement to get any appreciable range

[fierce moss]

get a buddy with a a harness go up one of the trees and toss a solar node up there.

doesnt have to be a giant antenna either

thats a big antenna

but if its a major concern, you coud do a decent stubby.

i have one of these on the roof of the truck

still 5dbi

that could mount directly to the box above

no need for a big pole

something like this.

toss it up in a tree where the face can get sunlight an youre all set. solid base station

can do updates wirelessly

[toxic shard]

Gary's builds are 🏆

@visual mist When setting up a node we recommend enabling the "Ok to MQTT" setting on the LoRa page. This marks your traffic as being ok to pass via MQTT connections, not just RF. We don't usually like to use MQTT for traffic except in place of RF paths we haven't yet made happen (like down to the shore). But it does let your traffic show up on the Meshtastic maps and public node database, which can be helpful for troubleshooting. This setting is disabled by default. It's a personal choice, but I think you'd find almost everyone in here turns it on for almost every node.

Mentioning it because it's one of the only non-obvious things we configure when setting up a new node.

Another non-obvious thing is if you change the Primary channel from being the default public one to being a private channel, you'd need to set your LoRa channel slot to "20" to remain on the main mesh, and you probably want to have the default channel re-configured on a Secondary channel so you can hear local traffic outside of your private channel. Private Primary is a bit of a power-user thing, people can get tripped up by it. It was more important before the 2.5 firmware when it was needed to protect position data. Now you have per-channel position control.

(this is one of the maps I mean: https://meshtastic.liamcottle.net/?lat=41.69495848394655&lng=287.1905136108399&zoom=11)

[fierce moss]

Check the pinned message too. I think it covers a little

[visual mist]

What's the thoughts on a RAK vs Heltec T114v2? Both use NRF52 so the power draw is minimal vs the ESP32 units.

For a solar unit I saw a link on Reddit where someone used this as the "roof" of a birdhouse install:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BP9P6XGW

Figure I could pick up one of those small IP67-rated cases, install a gland for the USB for power (battery pack is built into the panel) and then mount an external antenna...it's only a 4W panel, but as long as I'm using an NRF52 unit and not worrying about GPS, it seems like it would work...

[visual mist]

I kept public primary 👍

And I updated both my nodes to 2.5.20 earlier today so I'm good there too

[toxic shard]

Both are good. If you want a screen for a portable node, the t114v2 is great. If you want gps, I’d probably go with the t114 too. If you’re doing a fixed node or want sensors, I’d go RAK wisblock

[toxic shard]

Haven’t seen this “birdhouse” used yet, but it sounds promising. Let us know how it goes if you give it a shot

[visual mist]

This was the project that someone linked.

https://www.printables.com/model/890830-meshtastic-birdhouse-node

I'm sure the range isn't the greatest, and if you look close you can see the antenna, but it's nothing that anyone is gonna look twice at

[toxic shard]

Very stealth.

[fierce moss]

Definitely use a real antenna though.
Functionality is more important than cool looks for the primary node

But after that, build all the wacky clients lol

Personally i really like the rak boards

And if you want to manually power it with usb instead of solar, (solar is nice since the grid stays more stable in a blackout when this is most useful), don’t run a usb cable.

Use a poe injector to cat6 cable. Run that into the box and then use a Poe splitter to break out to usb power to the rak.

It lets you run 300+ feet instead of like 10 before a giant voltage drop off.

[visual mist]

The solar panel has a built in 5000mAh cell (would assume it's just a 21700 Li-Ion) and then a 6" USB-C cable pigtailed right off that...no huge run over USB, and the person who posted the project on Printables designed it so the Wisblock is right up next to the cable

[fierce moss]

my issue is itll die in snow

the roof will be covered

all solar panels on nodes up north kinda need to be vertical

[visual mist]

I'm not looking to build the full birdhouse, just take advantage of the chassis, mount it perpendicular to the way it was originally designed, and have it be south-facing so the angled panels can catch a bit more morning and afternoon sun

[fierce moss]

ahh

have you watched TCC's build?

it's the same one a lot of us make varients of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3UluaqfTw&t=182s

[toxic shard]

Parts list https://www.thecommschannel.com/meshtastic/parts/index.html

[visual mist]

But now that I'm looking at it, not sure that's a viable solution, because of how it's designed in two pieces, the opening would be pointed towards the sky...so water/snow issues...ugh...

[visual mist]

Don't reinvent the wheel, huh? 🤣

[fierce moss]

we wont tell you what to do, but we've built a few now 🙂

[toxic shard]

Well, build a known round wheel first, then go to town on the next wheel 🙂

[fierce moss]

yea

[tardy steeple]

Madgear.shop has a few builds as well .

A discrete nicotine pouch node as well

https://madgear.shop/pages/deployable-meshtastic-repeater?_pos=1&_psq=repeater&_ss=e&_v=1.0

just run this as a “ client “ unless it’s really high up and can be used as repeater

[toxic shard]

It's always a tradeoff between cost, complexity, and time

[visual mist]

I saw a video on that one...SUPER stealth

[visual mist]

Far be it from me to ignore advice from those more experienced when learning something new

[fierce moss]

i mean

that box right there

to my credit

is the build i was talking about and the rokland stubby antenna i linked you earlier

lol

just minus the solar panel

if you want to see some build pictures.....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hfUk8wndAJtyTjd26

[toxic shard]

Haven't mentioned it yet, but be aware RAK and Heltec use different polarity for their battery connections (and sizes). Be sure if you buy a cell that the polarity is right. There is no standard for JST battery polarity. You just need to match your cell to your board (or get spicy and adapt the wires yourself)

[fierce moss]

my meshtastic crap album

[tardy steeple]

Nice album .

[visual mist]

Getting spicy with LiPo doesn't seem like a good first step into the hobby 🤣

[fierce moss]

ty

[toxic shard]

I generally agree. Some here are spicier than others.

The safest, but not cheap option is to go with a specialty power bank like the Austin Mesh is now doing https://www.austinmesh.org/devices/

[tardy steeple]

Just ordered a station g2

[fierce moss]

nice!

A bunch of 18650s pulled from old laptop batteries work too.

[toxic shard]

My G2 car node is doing well. The Jackery 100 even showed working low temp protection this morning.

[toxic shard]

Gary is spicy

[fierce moss]

just test em to make sure they are viable and at about the same mah

lol

[toxic shard]

At least Gary uses the right wire colors

[rare mulch]

Oh dear, come up. My newest rack board is now experiencing the exact same issues.

Suddenly disconnected from Bluetooth and when connected via serial keeps enumerating a different serial device.

[toxic shard]

Weird

[fierce moss]

yea wierd...

DFU flash it again

[toxic shard]

Full erase

[fierce moss]

do the FULL flash. not the overwrite

[rare mulch]

The only thing similar about these is they are Powered by the same solar panel.

[visual mist]

Does the Pi + HAT build have any benefits over the RAK or Heltec units? Or was that more a "see if I can build it" scenario?

[fierce moss]

theres a file that does the full clear

[toxic shard]

Possible it was too high voltage?

[tardy steeple]

Mines annoying to flash I have to jump it .

[toxic shard]

The pi hat has more output power, and is better for interfacing to software / mqtt

[rare mulch]

I'll have to check the voltage while it is running under full sunlight sometime, but it is plugged into the USB connector, which I would assume is only 5 volts... And that is plugged into the solar header.

[fierce moss]

It does. That is my base station.
It is 1 watt. since my barn has 7 days standby power, i didnt need solar. and i have a full linux interface running it

[toxic shard]

Remeber voltage goes UP as tempature goes down with solar, so it could be a cold sunny day being the culprit... maybe.. i'm no expert

[fierce moss]

i run POE up to it along with network.

also, since its a rock solid network node, i can connect to it from any computer/tablet

[tardy steeple]

https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/rak-wireless/wismesh/gateway/?gateway=gateway-wifi

[fierce moss]

so anywhere on my property

i also went the extra geek step and theres no storage in that box to go bad. It's all PXE boot and remote NFS storage in the barn

[toxic shard]

🤓

(i'm jealous)

[rare mulch]

Yay

[toxic shard]

🤔

[rare mulch]

(Sarcasm)

It's broken in a very strange way.

I just assume it's toast at this point.

[fierce moss]

weird

[tardy steeple]

Think I have everything

[fierce moss]

put the panel in direct sunlight and put a multimeter to it

see if the voltage is off

[toxic shard]

(cold)

[rare mulch]

Yeah, I'm gonna check that tomorrow.

But how much extra voltage are we talking about?

[toxic shard]

looks like it

[toxic shard]

7V would could be bad

[fierce moss]

yea. 7-8 could be bad

[fierce moss]

We need a nice linux/windows client that runs as a stable service, connects to a networked node, and just hosts all node functions via a web interface, maybe that looks like discord/IRC to as many client devices as want to connect.

Encourage single strong networked base stations for a whole house network.

[toxic shard]

Feels like MeshSense is 60% of the way there

[fierce moss]

its definitely part way there yea

[toxic shard]

MeshTXT is maybe 45% there

[rare mulch]

Update: The device still goes into DFU mode and I was able to reflash, and it works just fine?

My confusion was how to get to DFU mode because it's been too long since I last flashed it. (Double click.)

[fierce moss]

lol

double click 🙂

[tardy steeple]

Didn’t realize I was running a 5005 board however I’ve had ZERO issues compared to the 19007 board ?

Dafaq

[visual mist]

...ugh...$140-150 for DIY...suddenly what Atlavox is charging for that preorder Beacon node doesn't look so out of place 🤣

[toxic shard]

Atlavox used to have an "S4" node that was cheaper, but I think it's been out of stock and he's focused on the Beacon. It's so choice.

There are lots of nodes on Etsy

(which is a little weird, but I don't try to understand it)

[fierce moss]

the beacon looks OK... im happier with my diy. solars. way more battery. better waterproofing

those beacons are just begging for ice expansion to screw em up

[toxic shard]

I got this one that is similar to the Atlavox S4 https://www.etsy.com/listing/1679363121/meshtastic-solar-node-s1

(that's what's up at the East Berlin Fire Department)

[fierce moss]

i like that one. did you silicone tape the antenna?

[toxic shard]

Gary's approach is very... approachable. Readily available enclosure, some drill bits, soe fittings, some sealant, gtg

[toxic shard]

I don't recall. I think not.

[fierce moss]

thats the only thing i'd do.

[toxic shard]

That's EBFD

[fierce moss]

nice

[toxic shard]

Still a bit rough getting to Agent86 via EBFD, but possible sometimes.

[fierce moss]

turkey hill is a nice node. seems to be hit as much as torrington and chip by the community

[toxic shard]

Yeah, and it's not even on a mast

I haven't seen it but I think it's just sitton on top of a small radio equipment hut

[fierce moss]

and im mostly making fun of the beacon as ill never justify owning one lol

but it looks like a decent node

[toxic shard]

It's new so I'm sure there will be lessons learned, but it's a good small biz actually trying and I like that.

[fierce moss]

absolutely

[tardy steeple]

I saw a FD node go up . That was you ?

[toxic shard]

I provided the hardware, Jeff (K1HFZ) has the FD ins and put it up

Same for Turkey Hill

[visual mist]

How did you approach / convince EBFD to let you put a node on their tower?

[toxic shard]

I randomly emailed a ham (K1HFZ) and he happened to be a fire chief. Hard to replicate

[void cape]

Okay... @fierce moss you might find this interesting.

[toxic shard]

I'm having some conversations with a Canton CERT member (leader?) to try and get them to expand the mesh there

[void cape]

If you could get a node very high up in the Torrington Fish and Game, and a node on the tower on Overlook Mountain in Woodstock, NY, you may be able to line of sight it.

A node at Overlook Mtn. would cover an absolutely nuts range from Beacon NY to southern extents of Albany and Troy.

[toxic shard]

Interesting. I do worry about how the mesh would deal with a lot of extended coverage traffic. Hopefully future firmwares have smarter routing to not overload it.

[void cape]

Well, there's conversation in https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1282698033657811105 about setting up a mesh from NYC to Albany.. and while I doubt they'll mke it to Peekskill from Beacon, they probably could cover much of the Hudson Valley with a few well-placed router nodes.

[toxic shard]

This is like a color blindness test

[void cape]

Heh

This kinda assumes the node is on the ground at TF&G but if it's on a tower, there's a chance it would be able to be received.

ugh, if this was 2m it would totally work. But, 50 feet off the ground doesn't do it from TF&G to the ground at the mountain

100 feet at TF&G hits it though... so maybe it would hit it?

I want this website to support tower-to-tower measurements lol

[fierce moss]

hrmmmm

well

DJ is getting us access to the tower down the road

where i will be moving TFG's router to

that will fix our Torrington to Bristol bridge

[void cape]

It’ll be cool. I’m hoping they set up the node in NY too

[fierce moss]

im not positive what the tower height is... but i can LoS it at 100ft...

found it again

freaking searching on the sat map for the tower lol

[void cape]

Heh

The tower on Overlook Mountain is immediately adjacent to a large building ruin. The fire tower is located to the northeast of the radio tower

[fierce moss]

ooph thats a haul

[void cape]

Sure is. But it should be possible

[fierce moss]

you know...

i know some people in the deep/parks department.

if i say "hey, our group wants to put up tiny solar radios on your Fire Towers. hikers use them if cell phones go down for emergency communication."

we could probably get a few prime locations

i know plenty of people in public safety too... might be able to leverage one of them to bring the idea to the park people

we should look around our areas for local firetowers and line of sight into the mesh

Also. holy hell. This is the path from Torrington Tower at 100ft to Woodstock

that TINY clip

[tardy steeple]

https://www.facebook.com/share/1HEhfaigF5/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[void cape]

Ooooof

[toxic shard]

That'll be a 🤮 from me

[toxic shard]

Where is the clip on the map?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wf6BcZS3AY

Little cringe, but kind of fun

(the video, the tie is fully cringe 🙂 )

[tardy steeple]

Neat

[visual mist]

If the tie is wide enough, a sewn-in T1000-E would be a lot less work...just sayin' 🤣

[toxic shard]

True, but this could be a much better antenna. Would benefit from doing the tuning while laying against the body as that would affect the tune.

Just saw this screen in the mac app, helpful

Wish it detailed what each status means

[tardy steeple]

My kid just broke my solder iron .. fawk

[void cape]

It’s like Christmas! lol

[steady solar]

@fierce moss "Encourage single strong networked base stations for a whole house network."

What do you recommend? Have a station g2 hooked up by WiFi right now

[radiant sequoia]

on top of an old nextel shelter with our FD simulcast site.... separate 8db antenna mounted on a mast next to it, so not the stock...

[radiant sequoia]

heh...

[tardy steeple]

F this

Had to manually flash my board . That was a process.

[fierce moss]

The G2 is nice. I havent done much testing to see how stable the tcp stack is on it

It’s a good unit though. I love my pi setup, but it would be my number 2 choice for a base station.

[fervent sky]

Station G2 is mucho bueno 👌🏻

Silver Lake is a Station G2 in my garage attic. 5.8dbi gain 35° beam width antenna

Stable on WiFi

[toxic shard]

Been working on my node 8109 tonight. It'd been flakey as deployed. It's an Atlavox S4 that I upgraded from two to four 18650 batteries and put in a south facing window in town. Turns out the solder joint between the negative battery rail and the power management PCB was broken. Batteries were at 4.1V but if I tested + to - pads it was 0V. The + pad to the battery rail itself was 4.1V. Took a closer look and it was clearly broken, could wiggle it. Added fresh solder and that part is good now.

Bluetooth isn't working though. BLE antenna connection seems ok without taking the whole thing apart. USB serial works fine. Did a full erase and fresh firmware, no luck so far.

(this is a RAK 4631 based node)

another annoyance, it appears the meshtastic cli's --configure command does not properly set the private key from the config generated by the --export-config option

If anyone else can test that, I'd appreciate knowing if it's just me

running CLI version 2.5.11

Scratch the BLE part, told my mac to forget the device and paired again and it worked

[visual mist]

Is the Station G2 worth it over a T-Beam Supreme for a home node if I'm running off of mains? They're both ESP32-S3, but I can snag a Supreme off of Rockland with an L76K GNSS module for half the price that the Station G2 with no GPS module is listed for on Uniteng.

[tardy steeple]

I like my rak setup over all the options currently offered to be honest

Board for example

[toxic shard]

The T-Beam is 0.1W, the G2 can do the legal limit of 1W (or more if you've got some coax to push through), and has a Low-Noise Amplifier for receive. If it's running off mains there is little nead for a GPS.

I'm probably not just saying that to justify how many G2s I have.

😓

💸

The wiki for the G2 is almost worth the price by itself. And Neil, the maker, is in this discord and sometimes if you mention the G2, it summons him with a helpful answer. https://wiki.uniteng.com/en/meshtastic/station-g2

[tardy steeple]

Where do you usually buy from tindie?

[visual mist]

...holy shit...I just skimmed through the entire thing...don't understand half of it, but the sheer amount of information is awesome!

[toxic shard]

You don't need too much in there to enjoy it. The main lesson is to use a good USB PD power supply that causes the LEDs to be rainbow colored, not just red (which happens if you just give it 5 volts). Do that and you're golden.

And set the LoRa SX1262 TX Power Setting to "10" to get the legal limit 1W out of it. If you need to go through coax you can go up to "16", but keep your antenna gain in account. The rest of your settings will be pretty much the same as any node.

[visual mist]

Theoretically, how long of a coax run would I be able to get away with pushing the power up to 16?

[toxic shard]

Depends on the coax. You can find line loss calculators that let you input the frequency (906MHz) and the length and it tells you the loss. If the total loss is 4dB then you're basically losing all the G2 transmit and receive benefit in the coax. So you'd want to be well below that. Ideally you'd want the node close to the antenna with only a small amount of coax.

Here is a common calculator https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/

If you used 30 feet of RG-8X you'd basically be getting 1W out on transmit, and the receive would be a wash with other common nodes, if you set the power to 11 (1.26W out of the PA)

But better would be to put the node up on the mast near the antenna and power it with PoE and a splitter, maybe shove a Pi Zero W 2 in there for firmware updates (or don't if you can get it back down without too much hassle)

If you goosed the power a bit more than that, the RF cops won't know. But it's not very useful to have your tx much better than your rx. We're not an AM broadcast station, we want two way comms.

I wish someone made a USB PD over PoE adapter

There might be something hybrid like a "passive" PoE injector/extractor and a basic USB 2.0 over cat5. Might dig a bit tomorrow.

(if you are going to use coax, use the best you can afford. ABR Industries, etc. If it doesn't cost $2/ft or more you're probably not looking at quality stuff)

(that's be $2/ft with connectors on the ends, for modest custom lengths like 30 ft. Buying a spool in bulk without ends could be lower per foot, but more hassle)

height is might

[toxic shard]

If you want local coax Quicksilver Radio in Meriden exists. They’re often away at ham fests, so check before you drop by. http://www.qsradio.com/shop-now.html

[radiant sequoia]

that place is like a warehouse from the 1950's.... if it's still in the same location...

looks like they were testing missles at one point....

super nice people though,....

[jolly ruin]

hmm didn't know this existed. good to know!

[fierce moss]

Yes. 100%. The G2 is far superior to the t-beam.

for that situation

tbeam is ok for an esp32 mobile device that has a battery built in

G2 is way better for mains power

[tardy steeple]

It’s a nice and very unique place

[toxic shard]

I've never been, but I've ordered online and at ham fests.

[tardy steeple]

You gotta check it out . It’s a good time !

[visual mist]

That's not suspicious looking at all 🤣

[toxic shard]

#notabomb

[hidden timber]

@toxic shard see me in your list now?

haha

[toxic shard]

I see a couple of Noah nodes earlier in the evening

(ignore the arrow direction, it's a bug)

[toxic shard]

Did something change?

[hidden timber]

yeah, was in Berlin for that haha. back in Vernon now

[toxic shard]

nice.

[hidden timber]

thanking @fervent sky for use of his repeater ;)

[toxic shard]

Was able to get a trace from Plainville to BH1 Barber Hill and back, so maybe a few more nodes over there and you'll be connected.

[hidden timber]

ordered a G2, gonna replace my home base with that. we'll see, haha

[toxic shard]

Neil needs a commission program

[hidden timber]

hahaha

was eyeing it for a bit, but pulled the trigger with the conversation here today

[toxic shard]

If you ever want to use the external DC power, I've got cables for that.

[hidden timber]

what does that involve? was just figuring i'd use a PD cable & adapter

[toxic shard]

The G2 external power input can take 9V-19V DC via a 5-pin JST connector with a specific pin-out. You'd use this typically if you had a DC system already, like in a camper, boat, etc.

If you can use the USB PD, that's my recommendation.

[hidden timber]

gotcha gotcha. yeah it'll just be on mains, will prob go PD route

there's a battery backup in the building's exterior closet i've got the existing one in, along with a tmobile 5g modem for my backup internet, haha

[toxic shard]

My need is to use the G2 with a Raspberry Pi for remote administration and the Pi can't provide the PD power, so I'm powering the G2 with 12V DC and the Pi with 5V USB C, and the USB from the G2 to the Pi is just for data.

[hidden timber]

ah yeah, some day i'll figure out remote admin stuff for easier firmware upgrades

planning on moving soon, and will probably have much more flexibility then

[toxic shard]

nice

[tardy steeple]

https://www.printables.com/model/973805-station-g2-raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-common-mounting-b

[toxic shard]

I'm going to use a full-size pi in my use case, but that's a pretty tight little mounting plate.

[fervent sky]

@hidden timber You banned me from your little BetaMale IRC club then spam my nodes with trash?

[hidden timber]

damn bro, that was like 8 years ago. i didn't even remember what happened

actually only meant to send one, but it said unknown public key and i hit retry

[tardy steeple]

8 years ? Wtf

[tardy steeple]

https://shop.sb-components.co.uk/products/lora-hat-433mhz-868mhz

[toxic shard]

Got a real traceroute up to Artful Dodger

46 miles from me, assuming it's where I saw it report on the 6th

[tardy steeple]

https://discord.com/channels/1079561550924357683/1271250330927108147

[visual mist]

Waiting for the 915MHz

[tardy steeple]

I just ordered that LoRa HAT 915/868/433 MHz I got the 915

LoRa HAT 915/868/433 MHz
915 MHz
1
$35.00

Submit
Cost summary
Item
Value
Subtotal
$35.00
Shipping
$13.00
Total
USD
$48.00

[visual mist]

Oh shit nice!

...should probably actually CLICK the link instead of relying on the summary 😞

Which Pi are you planning to slap it on?

[tardy steeple]

4

https://a.co/d/0dzR8h3

[toxic shard]

Right now the 4 is more widely supported. For this type of project I think it's perfect.

[visual mist]

Zero2 wouldn't cut it? Only asking because I have one sitting in a drawer...

[toxic shard]

Zero2 might, but this is a full size hat so it'd be a bit funny looking

@tardy steeple is this confirmed working with Meshtastic?

[tardy steeple]

My buddy in Belgium has it . Said it’s good .

https://github.com/sbcshop/Lora-HAT-for-Raspberry-Pi

[toxic shard]

I ask because usually native needs SPI, not UART

But I guess if it's converting the UART to USB it could work

[fierce moss]

I don’t think UART will work

Even if converted to serial

Needs to be SPI based

[rare mulch]

"What random materials do I have laying around I can use"

[tardy steeple]

C4?

[toxic shard]

I knew a girl in high school who kept saying "There's no problem so big it cannot be solved with high explosives". I wonder what ever happened to her.

Who is Bantam Lake again? Their router node's clock is way in the future

(well, a day and change in the future)

[fervent sky]

Flux Capacitor powered node

[toxic shard]

Had a nice chat with this node in the area from RI

[toxic shard]

Restarted my client (official macOS) and it appears to no longer show this. Weird it would have this happen for just one of the many nodes updating regularly. Who knows 🙂

[toxic shard]

Interesting, my Atlavox Beacon seemed to lock up last night. Wasn't showing up on bluetooth this morning and looking at my logs on FIRM it stopped reporting about 12 hours ago.

Brought it in, powered off and on, now it's working.

82% battery, not sure what's up

[tardy steeple]

Ever since I updated 2.5.20 I’m
Losing all my nodes

I have to power off and on to connect again

[toxic shard]

(this is a RAK 4631 node running 2.5.20)

[tardy steeple]

5/6 nodes all are all non responsive

My t beam 2.5.16 I believe zero issues .

The 5 running 2.5.20 all are non responsive via Bluetooth

[toxic shard]

Are the 5 all RAK?

Have you tried 2.5.21 alpha?

[tardy steeple]

No

Seeed t1000e

Rak 4x

[toxic shard]

21 has t1000e fixes too

sorry, .22 has the t1000e fix

Might need to do a full erase and flash:

For NRF52 devices which have been upgraded through the 2.5.X versions, a full flash erase is recommended to fully remediate any lingering LFS assert issues.

[tardy steeple]

I’ll have to deal with it by just rebooting for now .

I’m on the road for work and won’t have laptop until Friday at the earliest .

[void cape]

2.5.15 has been treating me well on the Station G2

[toxic shard]

Weird BLR1 is showing up in the future again

ok, seeing the same on my phone on a different node.

[tardy steeple]

Shits driving me mad

[toxic shard]

weird

[tardy steeple]

All my nodes with 2.5.15 are fine , anything past that nothing but issues

At least my soda is nice lol

[tardy steeple]

@toxic shard

https://www.hackster.io/news/deng-dazhong-s-uconsole-add-on-board-turns-the-gadget-into-a-multi-radio-meshtastic-powerhouse-23faae952ba9

[toxic shard]

nifty

[steady solar]

Well thanks for the reports on 2.5.x, going to hold off upgrading for now heh

[steady solar]

The lake now identifies as Australian

[steady solar]

Hey @sudden locust got a question for you - got my station g2 running on the veektomx battery pack as recommended in the wiki, except I only today (doh) just realized that I didn't have Lora PA working (only LV LED lit, not PA or HV). The battery pack offers PD, but ONLY when it's not plugged into AC power for some reason. Tested with known working PD cables that I have and that's the conclusion I've come to.

Do you have any recommendations for any other battery packs that will offer PD while plugged into AC power? In an ideal world my goal is to have the G2 plugged into a battery pack, which is plugged into AC power so if there's any sort of power outage it will remain online.

[sudden locust]

See Here:
#solar-power message

Most small power banks have some very strange safety designs. For example, when a new device is connected to a power bank with multiple USB ports, all devices will be powered off for a short time. In your case, charging will cause the state machine to reset.

[steady solar]

Hmmm I see, I suppose it's not the end of the world if a quick reboot happens, but the lack of PD while charging is a deal breaker I'd like to figure out

Trying to have less manual intervention - had the power go out here several times today and the lightbulb went off hah

[sudden locust]

The power bank in the link above has been proven could be used as usb pass through power bank

[fierce moss]

You need to just search for the right one. They have ones that support being plugged in and feeding power, but they are rare

[steady solar]

Thanks guys! @sudden locust @fierce moss

A bit difficult to find as it seems like even jackery doesn't advertise the feature, it's not even in explorer 100 manual heh. Have to go off of anecdotal evidence it seems

[sudden locust]

See here about passthrough charging:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Jackery/comments/udc2a1/does_passthrough_charging_reduce_the_battery_life/

[steady solar]

Ooooh this is a great piece of info, thank you! Comments are a gold mine

[sudden locust]

https://my.jackery.com/portable-power-stations/explorer-100-plus-portable-power-station
See the FAQ for the last question:

Q: Does it Support Pass-through Charging?
A: Yes, the Explorer 100 Plus supports pass-through charging, with no harmful affects to battery life.

[void cape]

Most battery chargers are made pretty cheaply. They assume that you are either charging or using the battery, and not both at once.

[toxic shard]

I'm using this pack for my mobile g2

[void cape]

TI sells a product called “Power Path” that has separate circuitry for connecting the battery, separate from the input and output sides. I don’t know what other vendors might call it, but here’s a schematic from a datasheet:

[toxic shard]

I mentioned it in here a week or so ago, but we've got a lot of traffic so no doubt it was missed

The Jackery 100 also is LFP (potentially safer) and has low-temp charging protection (which I've seen working)

[void cape]

uses a 1024 AH LFP setup

[nimble vale]

EcoFlow and Anker both have EPS btw

[toxic shard]

The EcoFlow River 3 would be the next step up from a Jackery 100 for me. But I got a great deal on the little Jackery 100, so it's perfect for this.

Anker has too many products for me to remotely know what supports what.

This might work, plugs into AC https://www.anker.com/products/a1339-anker-prime-power-bank-9600mah-65w-fusion?variant=43931966210198

The Anker SOLIX C300 DC Portable Power Station would be a bit overkill, but no more so than the EcoFlow River 3

Someone should make some YouTube videos testing all these. Probably get sent a bunch of free batteries.

https://tenor.com/bVDMM.gif

[nimble vale]

There’s some cheap powerbanks that definitely charge while charging a device but it’s not a battery bypass like on more advanced packs

[steady solar]

Yeah it's kind of silly, all that I own pass power while charging but most are older, and of course the one that I have that has PD provides power, but not PD power, doh

[fierce moss]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375967708816?_skw=Jackery+100&itmmeta=01JM8XHZ11FXNP7MW40NQQW5TR&hash=item57896bf690:g:susAAOSwSnZnoDTL&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1c%2Fa8EyS1ON8Kdyiw0LznmUmV3z9X5V5dS0WETKDbGk%2BQWnP1XmTLwHMDzW3G406Y5zz8k9w%2FuEFY15tSdYQc5b9nuNk6CY4ZSfDyB4PeSeKEwp8h4bh5k5BX%2F15ronruFt%2FNwt6309ST8PKXctoTvco1llefePKQz30nC6qAj7qL1umhPato%2BZ4P%2FVuusoteHENLIqLCLrr%2F6ofAom2GDTFPPW8YF6ydc%2BvWMvcyNufYw2FewsU7tt5%2FiirhjD09fsPjN5ozC4kQ5LNYtqZihAdCuubL3pbN9P6A%2FstjrmXQ%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9rwx52iZQ

$64

not bad. id buy it if i had any extra cash atm.

[void cape]

Alternative power lol

[fierce moss]

definitely one way to do it lol

[void cape]

It’s charging my phone which is added benefit

[fierce moss]

well crap

my base station is offline...

i dont know if it was the losing powe 5x today or snow....

guess ill see in the morning. but its not taking PoE

but theres no way to get on that roof atm anyways

maybe in the spring i change it. just run a minimal coax up to the roof and put the node in the upstairs gun room in the building.

keep it relatively short but accessible

boo. thats sad

[tardy steeple]

Mine too . I had it mounted on my window and the wife forgot it was there and she took it out yesterday .

Not that much of an issue just have to get a usb c cord from Best Buy .

I have extra usb pass thrus for the case tho .

[toxic shard]

I'd be interested in how long that can last

[tardy steeple]

Same here

[toxic shard]

just noticed that's not getting USB PD. If you want to go 12V direct i have the cables, I can send you a couple

LEDs should be rainbow, not red.

[void cape]

Yeah, just went out and bought a PD cable and thingy

So here’s the draw at idle plus the draw of a spike

[toxic shard]

thingy?

[void cape]

20Ah 12V battery

Yeah, it’s like a car charger panel jack with power delivery

[toxic shard]

14.8 is pretty darn high

oh, nevermind, that's the PD

[void cape]

That’s what it’s requesting right now

[toxic shard]

i thought that was from the LFP lol

ignore me, i'm brain shot today

[void cape]

Yeah got power back, this is running off the desk power supply.. it’s an Anker thing with 4 PD ports

[toxic shard]

cool

[tardy steeple]

My power bank in the backseat keeps setting off the seatbelt sensor and it’s a persistent warning chime it’s annoying the crap outta me

[void cape]

Seat belt it in lol

I click the seatbelt when the dog rides in the front seat

She’s just barely heavy enough to trip it if she sits a certain way

[toxic shard]

dog pic please kthnx

[tardy steeple]

Never had a car where the backseat goes off. I just had to swap cars at enterprise .

[toxic shard]

what kind of power bank is it?

[void cape]

This was from a few days ago, not the most recent Storm

Her name is Kira

[toxic shard]

🏆

[tardy steeple]

https://www.ankersolix.com/products/c1000?variant=49702371524938&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAABVgOKnoZD-DiCCjPIK3T7iK7Zvvm&gclid=CjwKCAiA2cu9BhBhEiwAft6IxH1TcYzElSWie-d9bJduaSuTHfoliAAt9WC1cd5zx1AgNjGEqfoAIhoC0xEQAvD_BwE

[toxic shard]

nice

[void cape]

I’d put that on the floor tbh if you can

[toxic shard]

i'd seatbelt that in for sure 🙂

or floor

[void cape]

That thing weighs enough that it would make my backseat look weird

[toxic shard]

28LB

[tardy steeple]

It’s like 30 ish

[void cape]

So 1.7 watts when transmitting. Duty cycle of that is likely less than 1% based on me watching it sit here

It’s around 0.57 watts at idle with the screen off

In 2 minutes it’s drawn 21mAh of energy.

(With one spike included from pressing the side button to send a location packet)

Oh phooey! That includes the draw from a BME 688 too!

Well, I always run it with that

At 4 minutes, now at 39mWh

That’s 585 mW per hour.

So, probably 35-40 hours of runtime on that battery I had if full?

Oh wait

That’s 20Ah, not Wh

Multiply that by 12

[toxic shard]

12.8

[void cape]

17.5 days

[toxic shard]

throw in some margin for the USB adapter, maybe two weeks, maybe 12 days

[void cape]

I’d say comfortably 2 weeks, I guess. It could last 3 or so

[toxic shard]

Try it and see. I'm getting a month on 20Ah with my RAK, I think their "Green Power Module" that I'm using to convert the voltage is blowing a lot of it.

[void cape]

Mmmm

[toxic shard]

(that's on "SOL")

[void cape]

Do note, this is with that sensor attached. Although I suspect it draws very little.

I’d almost always equip a station with this for long term operation though. It gets temp, humidity, pressure, and air quality

[toxic shard]

what do you have your TX power set to on the g2?

[void cape]

That’s a good question…

It’s probably stock

30dBm with RX boosted gain on

I’ll also note this is connected over Bluetooth. It could draw less if I turned that off. I’d do that if it were somewhere remote.

I’m seriously contemplating buying another one and stuffing it into my satellite control box.

[void cape]

So weird thing - my USB debugger thinks it’s requesting QC2. I’m not sure if that’s just a clueless tester or if it’s actually requesting PD

[tardy steeple]

So the debugger is bugging?

[void cape]

All 3 lights are on in the G2

[toxic shard]

I haven't run my USB tester with it.

[toxic shard]

seems happy

[toxic shard]

That sucks! Please let us know what the autopsy says when you are able to take a look.

[void cape]

I’m curious too because I’m about to power a node over PoE as well.

[toxic shard]

It'd be nice if Ian's time traveling node would send lotto numbers to ConnNet

Does anyone else see BLR1 in the future?

[tardy steeple]

@fierce moss Do you see my node connected to the mqtt. I think I set it up properly.

[fierce moss]

mqtt is down atm

my base station is dead

[tardy steeple]

Ahhh that’s was the base . Ok .

[fierce moss]

ill get another up and running shortly

ill get the G2 up as the base station for now. torrington will relay

[toxic shard]

@void cape "Probably not a great idea ", are you replying to someone?

[void cape]

You climbing the metal roof

Oh

Yeah, Gary

[toxic shard]

Ahh, I'm not seeing his messages

[void cape]

I'm able to talk to him direct right now but it must not be relaying w/o MQTT

Weird how you can see my messages though?

[toxic shard]

5 hops for your messages

[void cape]

I'm in a valley with no chance being heard directly in Brist... yeah

He must be even more hops than that right now.

@fierce moss What's your G2's hop limit set to?

I think the answer might be "not enough"

I'm seeing Gary with 2 hops right now.

Although I'm not successfully getting a traceroute right now

I'm sending a trace towards d85c

Long-distance traceroutes often fail for me

I can trace to AE1B across the street just fine... 0 hops lol

[toxic shard]

I'm seeing GFMB (Meshbot), interesting

[void cape]

I'm able to trace to ddr_r_r1 right now; that's also 0 hops.

TF&G though.. no response yet.

That thing never responds to my traces though.

[rare mulch]

So my rak is doing the same thing again. No longer paired and refuses to pair and when connected by USB keeps enumerating a new serial port.

[void cape]

Alright, fine router, spit in my face. 2 hops towards 1 hop back

Wipe & Flash?

[rare mulch]

Yes, a wipe and reflash fixed the issue last time.

But I don't understand why it's happening.

[void cape]

Is your power reliable?

[rare mulch]

Extremely.

[tardy steeple]

Anyone ever do power over coax?

[void cape]

I do it for my satellite dish.

[rare mulch]

The only variable here could be the solar panel. However,

I guess I could try running this from AC power instead. See if the problem comes back and that might indicate an issue that solar is introducing somehow.

[fierce moss]

im redoing the G2 as my temp base station now

[void cape]

I ask mostly to see if the system is browning out. If the system enters brownout detection, it could enter a weird bootloader mode.

[rare mulch]

Brownout not likely with a 7,000mah battery.

[void cape]

So, the voltage might be fine but if the batteries are cold and can't sustain the current.

[rare mulch]

Okay, that might be possible.

This battery is up against a window.

[void cape]

Performance of Lithium batteries below freezing tends to be quite meh. I use lithium batteries in my outdoor train and when the temperature is around or below freezing, it has less current available and doesn't have as much pickup.

[tardy steeple]

I found this for power over coax

https://www.printables.com/model/816502-meshtastic-routergateway-heltec-wireless-stick-lit

was thinking about setting it up .

I just have never did that power setup before

[void cape]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Bias_tee.svg/194px-Bias_tee.svg.png

My satellite dish is using a bias tee

(see above)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_tee

They are pretty cheap on Amazon.

In this particular case, I'm actually using the built-in bias tee on the RTLSDR to power the LNA on the antenna

[fierce moss]

Yea but we are talking miliamps

[void cape]

The G2 draws about half an amp at 14 volts when transmitting 30dB

[fierce moss]

ive seen no issues for the draw and charge rate that these use

[void cape]

Maybe the RAK is less power hungry on transmit?

I haven't USB datalogged that one yet.

[fierce moss]

oooh a g2

rak is way less power hungry

g2 is 1 watt tx. rak is 100 miliamp

[void cape]

Wouldn't it use the same power if it's outputting 1W?

Ohhhhhh

[fierce moss]

most devices tx at 100 milliamp

[void cape]

I was under the mistaken impression they do 1W

[fierce moss]

even most other esp devices

[void cape]

It's less likely, but still plausible that it brownws out.

It only takes a few milliseconds to brown out a processor.

[fierce moss]

rak wont. i can see g2 possibly

in super super cold

[void cape]

the caps aren't very big on that board though, right?

[fierce moss]

they arent, but unless completely shorted, even one 18650 wont drop below that amperage

[void cape]

Hmm

It would be cool to connect an o-scope to it and find out the answer.

[fierce moss]

agreed. youd need to toss it in a -5 freezer though lol

[void cape]

The scope? Or the rak?

My chest freezer is at -8 right now.. I could throw an 18650 in there lol

Granted, I don't have a clean way to connect an 18650 to the rak I have.

I have some other smaller pancake batteries like he has though, 2,000mA rated

I suspect that it would be hard to transmit out of a freezer lol

[toxic shard]

you could put one of these between the RAK and the battery to cut power to the rak before it gets too low that it browns out https://www.etsy.com/listing/1421193059/li-ion-battery-protection-modules-pcm . Also, there are some fixes in the latest firmwares. I'd try flashing the latest alpha if you've been doing the beta, just to see if it helps you.

[void cape]

Neat

[fierce moss]

anyone get my tests?

[void cape]

Yep

[fierce moss]

perfect

mqtt back up and running. confirmed torrington router is relaying

not ideal, but working fine.

Glad i got the G2 lol

[void cape]

It's been a bit over an hour since 9:43a, right now it's reading 850mWh

[void cape]

It's a really nice piece of equipment.

850mWh over 84 minutes - that averages to 10.11mWh a minute or 607mW in an hour.

These units are all sorts of weird; I'm not sure why this thing just doesn't measure joules.

240Wh with a 0.607Wh load is 395.38 hours or 16.47 days. I guess if you ommited the PD circuitry and powered it with the 12V directly from the battery, it could last about 14 days w/o issue. About in-line with the previous prediction.

[toxic shard]

i did not

[void cape]

Is the MQTT link still down?

I'm seeing a lot of updates from nodes that I only get over that MQTT link now so I suspect it could be up

[fierce moss]

hrmmm

mqtt should be coming back up

yes

let me check something

found it. that was blocking it...

ok rebooting

sent

[tardy steeple]

No

[fierce moss]

something is still funky. i hate the tcp stack on esp32

sent new test

you SHOULD have seen that one.

[void cape]

I got it just as I was leaving the house but I’m at Applebees now and I’m too far away from the car node

[fierce moss]

no problem

its all up

mqtt back and new base station for now

[toxic shard]

when you're there, you're family

[toxic shard]

does the new base have the same name?

[fierce moss]

no. dont want to do that as it will seriously kill encryption keys

Great Acres Farm -BaseStation- WG4RY

GFBS

[tardy steeple]

Applebees still exists ?

All the ones by me closed

[fierce moss]

torrington has one

[tardy steeple]

Oooo . Gotta check that out . I usually go to the one in Hadley Mass.

[fierce moss]

i mean they are nothing special. its chain food. like a chilies. but still nice to have around

[tardy steeple]

True . I try to stick to small mom and pop places . Very rarely go chain.

Where I am in Stratford it’s all bars more or less. I have to head over to Milford for restaurants

[toxic shard]

Does it have a position set?

haven't seen it down here yet. Not too unusual.

[tardy steeple]

How do you set a position ?

Can’t figure it out .

My node isn’t even in that circle

[fierce moss]

it does. i set it to static

[fierce moss]

Radio config. Position. Use Fixed Position. Enable. Add cords

disable smart position.

GPS Mode Not Present

[toxic shard]

You can't set the position using the iOS, macOS, or web clients. The android client you can. You can also set it using the command line tools, or by using MeshSense.

On iOS and macOS you can set it by telling the client to give the node the position of the device running the app, but sometimes this seems to be forgotten later on.

[tardy steeple]

Well I have everything except android haha

[toxic shard]

meshsense is the easiest option

[void cape]

Yeah. It’s alright.

The one in Torrington is the one I went to

I’m all for buying local but some of the local places are just shit.

And my dad was in Torrington for work so it was closest for him.

[sudden locust]

The lowest price I've seen on Amazon is 99 bucks. Also, if BestBuy still has the same good service as before, 90 bucks might also be a good price: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/jackery-explorer-100-plus-portable-power-station-99-wh-capacity-black/6565351.p?skuId=6565351

My impression of BestBuy is still stuck in 2014 🙂

[tardy steeple]

I’ve never seen them actually instore for purchase .

I’ve only seen the options for delivery or they ship to store for pick up

[tardy steeple]

It’s not showing up in my app linked to my t1000e that my base station is mqtt

[toxic shard]

I don't follow.

That looks like a node with a position

[tardy steeple]

SL55 doesn’t have the “ MQTT “ icon