Meshtastic

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What are some best practices for deploying a mesh? (midwest.social)

submitted 2 months ago by 7toed@midwest.social to c/meshtastic@mander.xyz

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Hello again, so far my mesh has been great as a neighborhood range gimmic (no harm, just bummed there aren't more adopters locally), but I'm hoping to go further. Turns out a neighboring town has a more extensive mesh than my own. Aside from convincing a bunch of people in between to set up meshtastic, could I go and set up a yagi and point it towards a known node for example? I am atop a hill and likey have LOS, but even if I get a signal, how should this be repeated if not by another node close to the yagi? Or rethink this entirely? Thank you all in advance

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If you have elevation, you could install two nodes there. One with a yagi towards the other town. The other either with another yagi or an omni for your town's nodes. Then set both nodes to ROUTER_LATE and add them as favourites to each other. Then your local node would go through the first, hop on the second and then shoot towards the other town. It'll lose only one hop over the two routers. More info on that. You could also use two CLIENT or CLIENT_BASE roles but you would lose 2 hops.

E: Also get a 1W RAK if you don't get good signal with your current hardware. I recently bought and tested some and they go markedly further with better signal all else being equal. It's receiving end is also better.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It'll lose only one hop over the two routers

Sweet that's just what I was hoping to hear. And those RAK units have sounded real promising, seems like the perfect time to start adopting local meshes

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Note that the usual caveats for using ROUTER/REPEATER/ROUTER_LATE roles apply. In your case it might be the right compromise.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 1 points 2 months ago

Having done a little more scouting around town, I think I discovered a potential black hole router - or simply nobody else is around, hard to judge by signal strength if they're doing good or not. Otherwise I do think I may be in a good spot to try setting up some infrastructure, if only I can get LOS to what seems to be a sparse network.. if there is one lol

[–] BaconWrappedEnigma@lemmy.nz 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If you are OK with connecting them via the internet then consider an MQTT backhaul: https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/integrations/mqtt/

Please let me know if you want a dead-simple "How do I connect two towns via the internet?" There are obviously traffic implications, so please coordinate with Town 2.

If you are looking for non-internet options then it sounds like you are already on track. High up, line-of-sight, and a directional antenna are a good start.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 1 points 2 months ago

Next time I'm down there I'll certainly ring their longfast some more, seems like at least one of the nodes I picked up on was a solar powered RAK, and was picking them up from an unideal spot from over a mile away. I'd certainly imagine they'd want to expand.

I'm a little apprehensive of being on a map, I know that there's programed deviation and you can opt out. I am looking to join a local metropolitan area group.. but they only cover up til a few towns away (at least with position disclosed nodes)

[–] jared@mander.xyz 2 points 2 months ago

A high up directorial antenna would help, so I'd give it a try.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

The higher it is the best. Its even better than a better antenna.

Meshtastic is on very low wattage so many hard surfaces stop the signal.