Its a LILYGO T3S3 (a module focused on handheld use) stuck into a housing I modeled myself and 3d printed out of ASA plastic. It has some Chinese "high gain" 915MHz antenna inside the grain silo looking part, which is oversize to prevent too much signal reflection/distortion from the plastic being too close to the antenna. Its powered by 18ga alarm system wire that I draped down the roof to a 5v power supply on the deck. And since I'm renting, non permanent modifications only, thus the clamp to the vent pipe.
Its what I had, just to get started. Quickly realized I needed to be on my roof to get any good connections in my node-sparse area haha.
So far it's working well, I have 13 consistent mesh connections with 3 direct connections, when before I would previously only get spotty connections to the mesh at all from inside my house.
I'll buy some better base station hardware later, once I put one up at my girlfriend's house a few miles away....
Considering! Are those booster modules us legal?
Yes, they are. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission allows 1 watt EIRP on the ISM bands.
HAWT
The only issue you may have with the 1W is that they will be able to send to nodes that will probably not be able to contact you back. Because they are lower power.
So while you may be able to send really well, receiving may be a bit more difficult.
Ive heard of people saying that the 1W will muddy up the radio space since its basically one node "screaming" over others. Im not 100% buying it as 1W is still pretty quiet compared to other electronics in other spectrum. But thought I would mention it.
US-legal yes. We use them in Canada as well but I haven't checked if they're legal here. They can be configured to tx at lower power. Their rx stage is also more sensitive so they're approx balanced with the 1W tx.