IcedRaktajino

I also thought all TV shows were live and the actors took breaks during the commercials.

And a satisfying but not too jarring "thunk" when they seat in correctly. Plus, the activity light let you know it was safe/not safe to hit the eject button.

Love how tiny that is, but I'm not a fan of the pin layout on those little Xiao modules. The connection pads on the bottom, including the battery connection, are a major pain to try to solder to. If I ever get around to playing with the remaining two I have, I'm gonna try using pogo pins or something instead of trying to solder onto them

Edit: I do really like that it has external antenna connectors for both Wifi/BT and LoRa (unlike my Heltecs). Assuming I handle the battery charging and convert to 5v externally (to avoid dealing with the annoying battery pads) they'd make a great "attic node" (in my case on a mast in the back yard) that could stay connected to my wifi rather than having to remote admin it over LoRa (Slow and not all config options are available)

Just started Q-in-Law by Peter David. I'm not very far into it yet but it's got Lwaxana and Q so I'm guessing it's going to be "unstoppable force versus ~~immovable object~~ unstoppable force".

If I remember correctly, the theory was that a heavy hit of adrenaline can lock a memory in for life

So the next time someone gives me directions, I'll jab myself with my EpiPen to see if I actually remember them. lol. Science!

I don't think that will work. At best, it would split the signal power and neither antenna would perform well. That's not even getting into the RF wizardry which I'm not equipped to fully explain (or understand lol).

The "proper" solution would be to have two Meshtastic units. One in a high place for long range and configured with the "client base" role and the other one(s) with regular antennas optionally in the "client mute" role. The reason for that is they'd likely be able to "hear" the base station one just fine and relay through it and wouldn't necessarily need to rebroadcast locally. If they do, then they can be in regular "client" role.

Since I have multiple units inside, I keep mine in "client mute" when I'm home so they go through my "attic node" and switch to "client" when I'm out and about. The 2.7 firmware makes this easy to switch directly on the device without having to mess with the app settings.

https://meshtastic.org/blog/demystifying-router-late/

Now if you're talking a highly directional Yagi for the high gain/high place antenna, then I believe the general guidance still stands. The newer firmware has some zero hop configuration where you can "pair" devices (via favoriting) and while they still hop the signal, it doesn't decrement the hop count.

https://meshtastic.org/blog/zero-cost-hops-favorite-routers/

Yeah, it's hard to know if people use the word "repeater" colloquially or technically, so I always repeat the Meshtastic warning about that role since it has a high likelihood of being detrimental to the mesh in the area.

Hope you find something suitable because it's a fun project. I only get a few hits each month (less in the winter it seems) but it's cool when you randomly pick up someone from miles away and have a chat.

She's only got a minor recurring role in the later seasons but she plays the hell out of it.

But that show's awesome so yeah, definitely watch it. It's the US version of La Reina de la Sur which I haven't seen because I can't find it on home media here.

I'm not aware of any ready-to-use ones you can buy that are outdoor rated. Pretty much all of the pre-assembled ones I've seen are in a handheld or portable form factor.

For a "repeater" node (note the quotes, explained further below), I've wanted to pick up one of the new 1 W high power Rak Wireless boards (link). Those have a battery terminal as well as a solar input for charging. All you'd need to add would be a PV panel + battery and put it into some kind of housing. I'd also use a nicer antenna than the little stub one that comes with it.

You should be able to put that together without any kind of soldering, though you would need to wire the solar panel output to a battery-style connector to be able to attach it to the board. There are solder-free wire splicers you may be able to use, but it's also a good opportunity to practice soldering as there's little to mess up.

For the housing, you might look for outdoor-rated utility boxes or something like that. Would probably have to drill and seal holes for the antenna connector and solar panel wire, but shouldn't be too difficult. That, or you may be able to get a friend to help with 3D printing a solution.

Now, back to the use of "repeater" instead of repeater. Meshtastic docs are very adamant about only using the repeater role (now "router" role; repeater has been deprecated in recent versions). In all but the rarest and most optimally placed cases, you'd want to be using "client" or "client base" modes as they repeat messages but without forcing other clients to use them (and thus consuming a hop).

I recognized her from Queen of the South lol

And this printable Altoids tin just feels like salt in the wound 😆

Though it does make sense if you want that form factor / nostalgia but are working with a device that uses WiFi/BT and want to keep the antenna internal. The plastic faux Altoids tin wouldn't block the signal like the real one would.

I guess with so many microcontrollers now offering Wifi and Bluetooth, the end of the Altoids era was inevitable.

Genuinely curious. Why exFAT? (I didn't downvote you, BTW).

I've not had any issues using ext4 for my Pi's SD cards. Any issues due to improper shutdowns are fixed with journal recovery. I also like to set a fairly high commit time in the mount options (120 seconds usually). Worst case is I lose the last 2 minutes of data, but it seems to work well to coalesce the writes (especially for things like Jellyfin or anything that uses SQLite and does a lot of constant little writes).