Meshtastic LORA nodes. Anyone playing?

ToddDubya said:
How do you not use a hop to get through a node?

My problem isn't running out of hops, it's talking into the ether. What stinks is the tree in my yard that would be the best is next to the power lines, so I'm not keen on throwing a rope up in it to hoist up a node. Maybe I can try it in a worse tree.
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Repeater doesn't consume a hop when it re-transmits a message. I will eventually get a node up in my yard to push to the node in my office and set that node to repeater so I dont burn a hop immediately
 
I got this: RAK Starter Kit

and a battery.

The antenna was rubbish, so I got one of these.

I printed a case, which I can't find at the moment. It didn't quite fit it without lengthening the battery wires, so mine is just loose in there. In fact I only bothered to print one of the three parts to the case. I should probably make the other two at some point.

I actually got two of everything. It's helpful to have a second so you can test things. You just need a second phone/laptop/tablet/whatever to connect to the second device.

If you don't want to dick around with them, it's probably a good idea to just buy a full up unit. I just wasn't sure how invested I wanted to get in this and didn't want to drop too much money on it. Plus I have the ability to print things. The finished units are probably nicer.
 
fshalor said:
Are you guys finding decent cases for your Lora stuff? Or all DIYing it?
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I have one I printed and one just has all the parts sitting in a plastic cup on the fireplace mantle with the antenna oriented vertically. My friend has a nice looking one he bought for his Heltec. It came with a rotary encoder to send canned messages. I want to say he got it on etsy.

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I ordered up a pre-built Muzi H2T this weekend, don't expect to see much activity where I am yet but the nodes do seem to be building out into the 'burbs. Once I get the hang of things I plan to take it up to just under 400' with the drone to see what kind of coverage I get.
 
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I bet the kids in the high rise dorms, and up on top of Orchard Hill and Butterfield/Van Meter could have some fun with something like these.
 
I picked up a SpecFive Spectre Spec5 Spectre Device It has a mini Android phone in the same case as the LoRa device.

It's seemed to be a good concept - integrating phone and LoRa device - but the system doesn't have enough battery in the phone to last a day. Even with the phone and LoRa device plugged to 5V power, the phone drops 50% in 5hr, with WiFi off and display off. That said, it does work when I set it outside a 2nd floor window facing known nodes.

My next endeavor will be an solar-powered RAKwireless WisBlock build. RAK Wireless Solar Unify Enclosure Case IP67 150x100x45mm + pre-mounte All going well, I can BlueTooth to the unit mounted on the roof from the attic.
 
MaverickNH said:
I picked up a SpecFive Spectre Spec5 Spectre Device It has a mini Android phone in the same case as the LoRa device.

It's seemed to be a good concept - integrating phone and LoRa device - but the system doesn't have enough battery in the phone to last a day. Even with the phone and LoRa device plugged to 5V power, the phone drops 50% in 5hr, with WiFi off and display off. That said, it does work when I set it outside a 2nd floor window facing known nodes.

My next endeavor will be an solar-powered RAKwireless WisBlock build. RAK Wireless Solar Unify Enclosure Case IP67 150x100x45mm + pre-mounte All going well, I can BlueTooth to the unit mounted on the roof from the attic.
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My bad! The case on the SpecFive Spetre was holding the USB C cable from contact and the phone wasn’t charging. I had to carve it a bit to fit. Now it’s been running 98%+ for more than a day.

I grabbed a Lilygo T-Beam Supreme from Amazon and put hat on an inside 1st floor windowsill overnight. Battery is at 70% with lot of nodes RX but TX out through the window is no-go. I have a “base station” LoRa 915 MHz antenna arriving today and will mount that outside hooked to the T-Beam on USB power inside the attic.

Would I want to put that on Router function to hop to my little pocket Spec5 Spectre in the house? It looks like Client-Router role was deprecated at 2.3.15 spa lot of “Intro to Meshtastic” info is out-of-date.

What's that grey circle on the map? My T-Beam is N4ST.

LoRa is a new trick for this old dog.

Screenshot_20250109-082321.png
 
Maybe a location precision ring? Meshmap has an orange ring around a node if it has that data.

Are those nodes you picked up just from out of the box?

You could use repeater mode but then you won't see that node in your list. Not sure it matters since that's really the only difference between router and repeater it seems. I've only ever set up my nodes in repeater mode since my plan is to eventually set them and forget them anyways.
 
cantstoptherf said:
Maybe a location precision ring? Meshmap has an orange ring around a node if it has that data.

Are those nodes you picked up just from out of the box?

You could use repeater mode but then you won't see that node in your list. Not sure it matters since that's really the only difference between router and repeater it seems. I've only ever set up my nodes in repeater mode since my plan is to eventually set them and forget them anyways.
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I think your right - some select wide precision rings.

The more I read, it sounds like Router role is made for rigs in an excellent location vs just a rooftop.
 
Hearing a new node - cambridgemesh.net - all the way up in Manchester, NH. Three hops - TraceRoute not successful. The webpage says it’s a new node with more planned in the area.

Also, got a LongFast from 5091_stationary that there’s a” Meshtastic Community Get Together” at Murphy’s Taproom 5-8pm tonight in MHT. Unless there’s a huge private net that I’m unaware of, LongFast is otherwise largely dead in MHT. One “Hallo” received in a week and one from Pine Tree Radio Society about their monthly meeting. Mighty quiet.
 
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I'm running NE01 with MQTT on, and NE02 with MQTT off here in Marblehead. I'm a bit out in the weeds here and have yet to have any actual chat comms with another Meshtastic station, and have only had one successful TraceRoute return other than within my own nodes. I do occasionally see chat sessions fly by between the stations closer to Boston, so there's hope.

For a few days I was showing up on meshmap.net with the MQTT node but for some reason I'm not there anymore.

Glad to see you have an active group in Manchester.


IMG_0939.PNG
 
Getting some pretty long TraceRoutes with the new outdoor 5.8dB antenna. Somebody put up a few nodes between MHT and BOS as we're seeing quite a few BOS nodes just recently.

I'll try installing Meshsense on a node to track the network.

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I just lightly assembled one of those WisBlock solar enclosures (still need to poke another hole for a different antenna) but I'm in such a bad location here signal wise at the moment. There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity down in southeast MA anyways so I'll have to bring a few of my nodes with me to NH next time I'm up.

Did you happen to purchase the outdoor antenna from Rokland? Got my eye on that for use with my base node.
 
ToddDubya said:
The role is set in the settings. All devices can be any rote, i.e. Client, Repeater, etc. There are many different roles to choose from. The videos @Admin keeps suggesting go through all of it.
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I'm looking at these things again. They all seem to be kits. I am not good with these things sometimes, and end up buying stuff that does not go together well. I can just picture a leaky box ruining whatever electronics are in there. Would love to get one of these in my paws and see what I can do with it. I just don't want to play around with pieces that have little meaning to me. I am going to try to watch a video or two this week.
 
There are some you can buy that are all pre-assembled and ready to go, like the LilyGo T-echo, T-beams, T-deck, etc. Just need to connect to them with bluetooth and configure any settings.

I recently assembled one of the unify enclosures from Rokland. I also picked up their Meshtastic starter kit, which comes with the meshtastic part already flashed and soldered to the base board. Hopefully the pics are big enough. FireTV remote for scale. There is a slightly smaller version of the enclosure but I went with the bigger one just so I'd have the room to play around with. I only partially charged the battery and has been operational for a few days straight now just getting whatever sun it can from the window (no traffic either). I glued the battery to the plastic insert just so it wouldn't be sliding around when handling.

It's as simple as screwing the board to the plastic insert for the enclosure and plugging in the wires, connect with your phone and finish any configs.

20250123_085357.jpg 20250123_083403.jpg


Link to the starter kit Here . Does not come with a battery so I went for the 3000mAh add-on option.
 
cantstoptherf said:
There are some you can buy that are all pre-assembled and ready to go, like the LilyGo T-echo, T-beams, T-deck, etc. Just need to connect to them with bluetooth and configure any settings.

I recently assembled one of the unify enclosures from Rokland. I also picked up their Meshtastic starter kit, which comes with the meshtastic part already flashed and soldered to the base board. Hopefully the pics are big enough. FireTV remote for scale. There is a slightly smaller version of the enclosure but I went with the bigger one just so I'd have the room to play around with. I only partially charged the battery and has been operational for a few days straight now just getting whatever sun it can from the window (no traffic either). I glued the battery to the plastic insert just so it wouldn't be sliding around when handling.

It's as simple as screwing the board to the plastic insert for the enclosure and plugging in the wires, connect with your phone and finish any configs.

View attachment 957087View attachment 957091


Link to the starter kit Here . Does not come with a battery so I went for the 3000mAh add-on option.
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Got the same kit I'm putting together for a rooftop node at Manchester Makerspace, with a 5.8 dB gain antenna. As
View: https://youtu.be/d2vQ87Th8DI?si=9h0zVgbjF_PgIkfJ
 
I've been 3D printing some cases and will Amazon up some guts in the coming weeks. Not really sure about Meshtastic in my area right now as I've yet to have a genuine contact, but I'm a geek and love playing with this stuff.
 

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Coyote33 said:
I'm looking at these things again. They all seem to be kits. I am not good with these things sometimes, and end up buying stuff that does not go together well. I can just picture a leaky box ruining whatever electronics are in there. Would love to get one of these in my paws and see what I can do with it. I just don't want to play around with pieces that have little meaning to me. I am going to try to watch a video or two this week.
Click to expand...

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Well, I ordered something. Hopefully it has a battery and an antenna or anything else it needs to work. Will find out in a couple days.

Hey, can you drive around with these things, to connect to other ones? Is that a good strategy? Or do you just put one out, and "hope some birds come to the feeder"?

I wonder if I could put one up in the upper area in our church. It is on a ridgeline, and has exposure to I-290, I-90, I-395, MA12, MA20, with 20 being the furthest at maybe a mile.
 
Oh oh. I bet I get no battery. It will be a while before I order anything again, so probably push this out a few more weeks. I didn't see the word "battery", so totally missed it, and assumed it came with one. To be honest, I'd be fine with hard wiring it and stick it in my attic window.
 
If you got the kit from Rokland then yea, you need to add the battery and whatever else you wanted to your cart. You can still just power it from USB either way, it'll just go down immediately if it loses power (duh). Order a battery and just slap it on when you get it. If it's going to be "hardwired" then it doesn't even matter if it's got solar anyways.

I'd think having an elevated overlook over some routes would be a good location. There's a node not far from my location, straight line anyways, but even with one of my radios 150ft in the air I got nothing.

Would a yagi antenna even be worth it for a meshtastic node? Would it really make any difference with such little power it Tx with. Or would it help enough with receive even if it did nothing for TX? Unless I got a node with a decent antenna on a tower in my area, I feel I'm limited to just working around the house or however far I can reach from there in the development.
 
Yes a yagi would help, but only in that general direction. It'll help on both TX and RX. You'd want the antenna close to the device, though.
 
rogersmithiii said:
Thinking of ordering a couple of these, and encouraging folks to put up some nodes. The technology sounds interesting, and best of all for hams, it's cheap. :)


Is anyone messing around with this?
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I have been running in unlicensed mode primarily, mainly with the hope of finding that one other Meshtastic user within range.

There are good alternatives to Meshtastic as well.
 

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