Welcome to the group, your in a great elevation and will help spread the network, unfortunately between your and my location in Dumfries there is an 80m hill in the way, lol.
However… every repeater helps. If your expenses can stretch to the ebay one I can recommend it, but I may suggest holding on for a moment as the Heltec v4 boards may prove to be better on both transmit and receive (I’ll be testing a couple as soon as evri manage to get my parcel back to the right depot for delivery .
If you have a look at the map at https://meshcore.co.uk/map.html you will see most of the repeaters / clients in Cumbria and SW Scotland
Once again welcome aboard and if you have any questions just ask
P.S Yes you will need 2 devices, 1 repeater and 1 client/companion/mobile for mobile use, what I will be doing is using my ebay solar repeater and swapping the existing v3 board for a v4, if you did that then it would give you the v3 to make your mobile device. As the boards are in the main just plug and play with very few connections there is no technical difficulty. (hint always plug the antenna in before connecting battery or usb power)
I’d like to add, even the flashing from meshtastic to meshcore is simple. just make sure that the browser you’re using is Google Chrome, and if Chrome can’t find your Heltec or the device you’re using, google will help you find the drivers needed to communicate with the COM port. (i had to do this on my lenovo laptop)
Yeah as @MM7FGU says. Hold on for the V4 Boards. Lad who makes them on ebay is making new kits with V4 boards in them. I think there also easy to swap out too from 3 to 4.
Dont worry @MM7FGU we will get you seen on the network soon lol
After flashing to Meshcore by default they are set to ‘10’ which equates to 24dBm = 251.188643151 mW.
You can send a command to the board ‘set tx xx’ and you could increase the 10 up to a max of 22, the ‘22’ equates to 29.9 dBm = 977.2372209558 mW
This output is + the antenna gain which = ooops
The device has a lna (low noise amplifier) which should / will / maybe increase the received signal strength but the down side is that it will also increase the background noise, however if you throw silly amounts of money at that problem by using filters, which may or not make any difference to reception but look great on an analyzer screen.
This person would never knowingly radiate more power than allowed by the powers that be.
Edit, PS … even at the ‘10’ level + antenna gain = hmmmmm, here’s the link to a great conversion calculator dBm to mW conversion calculator
But inclosing … power output is not a great factor in the grand scheme of things, height is might !!
You will get there dave. Ill try get my solar node up on the Chimney at some point. The antenna pole is blocking RF to IOM direction. Not a biggie but would like it up on the chimney.
hmmm i think i was celebrating too soon on the position of the yagi (on a pole high up in the room upstairs). atmospheric conditions were favourable through the night and now im getting nothing through.
it picked up throughout the day. Lee if you get chance, can you log into your solar repeater and in settings, check the neighbours page and if possible take a screenshot of that for me please? Interested to see what db levels you’re getting to different nodes.
Been meaning to reply but work has been super busy, after 3 years still hate 12hr shifts and whingy patients!
I ordered a Heltec V4 to upgrade my existing handheld, just waiting on it to arrive.
I’ve also flashed my heltec v3 with Meshcore and that seems to be up an running, once I’m done with work for the day, I’ll head outside as the house walls are over 1ft thick and blocks everything!
Hopefully I’ll be in range of someone. Might need to wait for the larger omni antenna I ordered to arrive.
On the Meshcore map, it shows the nodes in Carlisle using a different bandwidth, SF and coding rate to everyone else in Cumbria.
That frequency is wrong @Dani theres a preset in the menu. Change it to UK/EU Narrow. The frequency changed a few months ago. Try that. Im building 2 yagis 1 to point north towards Carlisle and one East maybe. Just waiting on parts coming and time to build them
Not sure if I’ll be able to reach anyone outside of Carlisle. If the node at Lowry Hill on Mesh Map is still there that would be ideal, I’d replace the omni antenna on the outdoor solar v4 with a yagi.
I dont think I’ll be able to connect to the relay in Aspatria as the LoS tool shows to much hills/structures blocking the way.
This is where I’m looking to set up the outdoor solar v4 on the side of my shed as a repeater.
Lat: 54.816950 Long: -3.034483 probably about 5m once on a pole.
Im also looking to add an antenna to the pole outside my bedroom window that the Starlink is mounted too just above the edge of the roof gutter line, run the antenna extension through the same hole as the Starlink PoE cable and then have a small base station sit on my windowsill, then I’ll be able to connect to the solar repeater on the shed. It’ll be up higher but unfortunately not high enough to miss the roof ridge. I dont think have a ladder long enough to reach the roof ridge on the side of the house, no chimney unfortunately.
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