Recently I constructed four do-it-yourself Meshcore repeaters, one of may be seen at right next to some bananas to show scale. Two of these repeaters have been placed into service and seem to be working well. This article describes the planning and construction process. (more…)
(Update: I am delighted to report that after a discharge-and-charge cycle, the batteries in this repeater are doing just fine. Not only that, but it turns out the batteries have an actual capacity that is better than the manufacturer’s claimed capacity. See followup blog article.)
Recently it became necessary to swap out an ailing repeater. The repeater had been purchased a few weeks ago and I deployed it, trusting that it would eventually charge up fully. But even after some weeks in service, the battery level hovered at around 43% and never even once got as high as 50%. The repeater was in a remote location, so the swap-out task was a bit of work. This blog article describes what made me realize I had a problem, what preparations and planning were needed, the swapping-out task itself, and the results. (more…)
Those (like myself) who install LoRa mesh nodes are in frequent contact with the extremely generous property owners who volunteer their property for siting repeaters. Each repeater ends up being very helpful in extending coverage of a Lora mesh network. Often for one reason or another a property owner prefers not to be publicly identified. I am absolutely delighted to let you know that longtime Summit County resident Joanne Hanson, along with her husband Jim, has let me know that she is willing to be publicly thanked. (more…)
(The property owners who made this repeater possible have said they are willing to be publicly thanked — see blog article.)
A new Meshcore repeater has been deployed in Summit County, this one in the Mesa Cortina neighborhood. As so often happens, what made this possible is the generosity of a property owner who volunteered to provide a site for the repeater. (more…)
A few days ago I deployed two new Meshcore repeaters — one near the Ruby Ranch neighborhood (CO-SUM-RUB-RE) and another near the Ptarmigan neighborhood (CO-SUM-PTA-RE). (I blogged about the installation of the latter here.) I am delighted to see that another volunteer has deployed two new repeaters — one near Lake Hill (CO-SUM-LH-RE) and another near the Frisco Peninsula (CO-SUM-FP-RE). These repeaters link to what was probably the earliest repeater in this part of Summit County, namely CO-SUM-WB-RE near the Willowbrook neighborhood.
Nice people in the Mesa Cortina and Hamilton Creek neighborhoods have each volunteered to provide a location for a repeater. These will likely get installed soon.
(Update: I had to swap out this repeater for a new one as you can read about here.)
Today I installed a new Meshcore repeater in Summit County, Colorado. It is called CO-SUM-P08 and it is a Seeed Solar Node. It reaches points in Frisco, Silverthorne, Dillon, Mesa Cortina, and Smith Ranch. In this article I talk about some of the planning and preparations, the installation process, and some of the results. (more…)
It will be recalled (see blog article) that I had deployed a temporary Meshcore repeater in Sonoma County, successfully linking to a robust Meshcore network extending across much of northern California. Today is the day that I retrieved my temporary repeater from its hilltop, and I migrated from Sonoma County to San Francisco.
Two days from now I will be on the dais, co-presenting a training class on the Patent Cooperation Treaty with a very nice person from the World Intellectual Property Organization. This will be at the spring meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association in San Francisco. Upon my arrival at the event hotel (the Fairmont on Mason Street) I fired up a Meshtastic node and a Meshcore node. What devices did I see? (more…)
(Update: I did retrieve the temporary hilltop repeater. My next stop was in San Francisco and you can read about it here. The repeater has now been installed at a location in Summit County, Colorado as you can read about here.)
I am a ways north of Santa Rosa, California at a temporary location in a house near Healdsburg. At the house, none of my devices was able to detect any local Meshtastic or Meshcore (web page, Wikipedia page) device. Driving around in nearby towns, I was unable to detect any local Meshtastic or Meshcore device. (more…)
(Update: this tag has become my EDC or “every day carry”. I really like it. It’s simple and I don’t have to think about it. But do not buy RAK’s snap hook — it’s too big and too bulky and too heavy.)
I just now learned of the existence of yet another small handheld LoRa mesh device that is intended to be nearly ready to use out of the box. This one is called the WisMesh tag (shopping cart), seen at right. It is made by a Chinese company called RAK Wireless. How does this device compare with other small handheld LoRa mesh devices that are intended to be nearly ready to use out of the box? I have not yet held a WisMesh tag in hand. Here are a few observations based on the public specs for the WisMesh tag.
(Update: a new repeater has been installed in the Ptarmigan neighborhood area.)
The only way that a mesh network grows and gets better is if homeowners volunteer to provide locations for solar nodes. Where are some ideal locations for a next solar node in and near Silverthorne? (more…)