Oddbean new post about login | logout Hey Dr I’m not sure if I would be of help, however I am in Ohio. I have no practical knowledge of Meshtastic other than the recent Bitcoin Veterans setting up the Meshtastic nodes in the Helene disaster zone. I come from a first responder career and know a tiny bit about radios. Ham, LoRa and this new Meshtastic not so much except for what I’ve learned in the last week over YT and the BV podcast. A lot to take in. With that said, I’m interested in trying to help. I have no Lora hardware but I’m interested in learning. Not sure how this comes across but thought I’d give it a shot. Grace and peace
Sounds like you have the background to pick up LoRa/Meshtastic pretty quickly. I'm new myself, but willing to dive in head first. Might you happen to be able to get tower space on Campbell Hill to install a node? I'm looking up all the highest points between Illinois and the Washinton DC area to figure out where the ideal repeater locations would be.
In looking at the pics of that site, many radio/repeaters are installed there with video surveillance, etc. Not sure what would be involved regarding hardware and power source (solar), but thinking it wouldn’t be just mounting a small hardware thing in a tree. Trying to do that undetected would be a feat. It could be done just not familiar enough with the hardware and the mission.
I'm going to be trying to make a node (based on a youTube video) with a solar panel to run 24/7 operations. I might try it out with several radios (Raspberry Pi Pico based one and mabe a RAK) to see how they fare (better/worse range, battery life, etc.). I'll post back my notes here when I have test results. I was thinking that one should get permission before mounting something on a tower. As nostr:nprofile1qqsqt94cze77fkfxhgt9s2rfxmht6gjn96n8asf2jrq8szkkdhclexgprfmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumgd96xvmmjvdjjummwv5hszxnhwden5te0wfjkccte9emk2mrvdaexgetj9ehx2ap0qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uvturtf has demonstrated, a Meshtastic node can be helpful in an emergency, so getting permission might be possible. I want to get the solar & weatherproofing down first before trying to coordinate to get tower space.