Meshtastic

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A community to discuss Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction)

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Did a little fox hunt for one of my area's local mountain repeaters. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 6 days ago by empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/meshtastic@mander.xyz

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Found it successfully. Crazy how this tiny box strapped to a tree with a simple whip antenna can reach out like 12-15 miles.

The node (took me like 20 min to find it in this tree):

The view from the node:

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[–] czardestructo@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Location location location. Ive found line of sight with no tree trunks or foliage the holy grail for meshtastic, it can go miles and miles with the right location. I have my node hoisted 90ft up in a tree on a hill but there are still too many branches as its not above the treeline and my node only gets out 3 or 4 miles.

[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How does it get power? 🤔

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago

Its a solar node. The face of it is a solar panel you just can't see it from the angle I took a pic.

[–] anotherandrew@lemmy.mixdown.ca 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Interested in hearing more about the fox hunt. Was this node transmitting significantly more often than normal nodes do? What did your hunting equipment look like? How far away was your starting point and did you have any clues when you started?

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

So, it had a fixed GPS location set, but with poor accuracy. It was close enough that I was able to figure out which mountain/ridge line it was on. That was my starting point.

After I got up there, I just used my own thinknode m1 handheld and the "signal quality" reporting feature in the app to repeatedly request signal quality reports from it. By holding the m1 in front of my chest, I could sort of make a directional 180deg antenna as my body would make the signal drop about 10dbm RSSI when facing away from the node vs facing towards it. After wandering in the wrong circular direction for a bit (and climbing over a rock face lol) I eventually found it in the tree.

Its fun and easier than you think!

Without the GPS location as a starting point, you could do the same thing using the signal quality report if you had a much narrower search beam using a directional yagi or something. It would just take way longer.

[–] reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 days ago

That’s such a creative solution to tracking it down! Great treasure hunt