Meshtastic

Hey all, sorry for the probably dumb question but I am new to this and don't want to blow a board....

I have a rak 19007 board powered by a lipo. My question is if I need to disconnect the battery to charge it? Or can I just leave it hooked up, add power via USB c or solar, and have everything work ok (battery charged and then device is powered by the external source)?

Ive been having fun with this software for a bit. Anyone have a list of other software they like to use for meshtastic (other than the official client)?

I heard an Talk about this. And wanna try this on an Connection between LoRadevice and Wifi and an old smartphone. When i have Time.

Hi, I added a buzzer to my RPI pico w, T3S3 and T-Beam Supreme and the RPI and T3S3 do beep during startup and the T3S3 seems to beep on some messages but not when I send a direct bell signal or message. Is there a better documentation explaining what options di what? I can’t get it work.

Hey all,
I accidentally purchased a battery for my T114 with the wrong connector. I am looking at just purchasing some JST connectors and changing the connector myself.

Is there any danger to do this while the cable is still connected to the battery?

The battery is a 803040 1000mAH 3.7V battery

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/42400858

Ihave a unique opportunity to add a node at the Tower LNB ring. However I'm struggling to source a Meshtastic gateway that meets the requirements I'v been given. Any help would be appreciated.

1. Power will be provided over 48v POE ONLY
2. Remote management is a must, consider both internet provided over ethernet and 4G/LTE as backup (fw updates)
3. Maximum 5db gain antenna can be used positioned on the LNB ring facing N-NW, must not exceed 1400mm in length
4. Must be tuned for exactly 915mhz (l'm thinking cavity filter) to help with Rx.
5. Enclosure and antenna must be pole mounted
6. Absolutely no wifi 2.4 or 5ghz
7. 500CND budget 'd like a set it and forget it approach. ls it even worth it?

Question about antennas. Is there a limit regarding size of an antenna that can be used on a device like the heltec t114?

For example, I have a old 8ft Lora Antenna that was used for the helium network at one point

It comes in 5,000 mAh and 10,000 mAh variants and will use 95% of the battery in power bank mode and reserve the bottom 5% to run the mesh node. I think you can run the mesh node and use all 100% of the battery if you wish, but the power bank mode can only use 95% of it. I think it's based on the NRF52 and SX1262 radio.

Edit: Sorry for the duplicate post. Please feel free to delete it, because I can't figure out how to.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/41765246

Well this is interesting. Stick-a-node to any smartphone with magnetic back. I could see myself trying this.

I recently purchased a Heltec V3 and a Heltec T114 to start tinkering with and get more familiar with. I was also interested in seeing if I can make contact with any other nodes nearby. It turns out i'm all alone out here, at least that's what I thought.

My friends and SO have no interest in these kind of things but then an idea hit me. My daughter (who is 6) is learning to read this and is getting better with her writing as well. Shes usually my partner in crime when I get something new so I figured I'd see if this is something she'd like too.

I had an old Android phone laying around that I grabbed and spent a good 15 minutes giving her a crash course on how Meshtastic works, its components, the app, how to connect to a node and how to send messages. This was also the first instance where she has used a device to send messages to another device (my phone). The second she saw her message pop up on my phone, you could see her little mind explode with possibilities!

I had her stay in the house (with her mom) while I went outside to do some range tests and we messaged each other emojis back and forth as her little face watched me from upstairs bedroom window.

Now every morning during my morning bathroom ritual, I get these broken misspelled messages (which are totally understandable) asking me how my crap is going. This inquiry is then followed by ideas she has regarding other experiments she wants to do. Just this morning we were planning our next adventure where she was going to wait for a nice day and get her mom to bring her and her brother to the park so that she can see if we can still send messages to each other from there.

I'm so incredibly proud of her that I just had to share this with all of you. If I hadn't come across this community I wouldn't have discovered the Meshtastic project and I wouldn't have had this story to share! Thank you to all that have made this project possible.

I just ran into the weirdest bug using meshtastic, I don't even know where to start searching for answers so I figured I'd see if anyone here had any ideas.

So, I'm using a t1000e in pocket/on the go and a heltec v3 in a window upstairs. Both are connected to MQTT on a local channel [State Redacted]Mesh. I've been home for a few hours now and neglected to switch from the t1000e to the V3, TX and RX the whole time from the t1000e. I just noticed and said "ah let me turn off the pocket and switch to the home node," switched over, and all the messages sent hours ago doubled up and got reposted to the mesh somehow just from switching nodes. I know this because the second I switched the room's bot posted a joke, and last person to call !joke was me, 7h ago, and when I commented on it someone said "yeah you just reposted something you said hours ago."

What the hell?! Any ideas? Problem started today afaik, haven't changed any settings. I don't want to spam the SRMesh with hours old messages for no reason lmao. I do not have store and forward on.

Edit: Forgot about this part!

The other weird thing is if I hit traceroute on someone from the SRMesh, nothing happens (but it should be "direct," because "mqtt"), I can do a bunch of them and nothing, but then when I switch nodes and back again all the traceroute windows pop up at once like 1998 popups. WAT.

Edit again: Guy in the mesh said "I had some weird shit going on once, not exactly this, but try deleting the app cache."

It worked. Didn't even have to delete storage.

Edit No. what, 3?: Spoke too soon, it's back, and it isn't just me. Turned off MQTT on all but one node, whatever.

• Channel Name: ShortFast
• Channel Key: AQ==
• Channel Uplink: ON
• Channel Downlink: ON
• Device Role: CLIENT
• LoRa Hops: 7
• LoRa Preset: ShortFast
• MQTT Topic: msh/US

The Channel name and key are auto set by choosing the ShortFast LoRa preset. Once there are enough people we can start state topics.

If you dont use the default LongFast meshtastic is really empty. I switched my node to MediumSlow, since it's like 86% faster than LongFast. I knew there would not be any in my area, so I subscribed to the msh/US MQTT topic and theres still nobody else. I'm going to leave it like that for a while and see if I hear anything during any kind of band openings or catch any other MQTT nodes trying out that topic. And yes, both uplink and downlink are enabled. I do know that there are some nodes in the Bay Area on msh/US/mqtt-bayme-sh, but I am not near their.

The new, keyboard case, is intended to be inclusive for all Meshtastic users. In a dystopian apocalypse, and all mobile networks are down. even zombies can now keep in touch with the R keyboard. Press the letter R repeatedly to spell out any zombie phrase.

I’ve recently come across this awesome project and have been doing a whole lot of research but there are still some questions lingering that im hoping could be cleared up by the community.

1. How safe is the encryption? Do two nodes upon initialization exchange public keys and then stored on the individual devices indefinitely? What happens if one of the nodes needs to factory reset and generate new keys. Will it let the other side know that the keys have been manipulated and require for a renegotiation to happen?
2. Is the concept of a multiple node chat/group chat possible? If not currently is it someone thing could become possible in the future?
3. voice chat; ive seen some hardware mentioning voice chat, has anyone tried this and could it be a replacement for gmrs radios with the added benefit of license free repeaters?

Thanks!

I just started using this so I know very little.

From what I gather, there's a default channel called "LongFast" which every device has from the start. I can see some messages in "LongFast" where I am.

I can see I can create another channel and share it via link, QR, etc.

Do people make such channels and share them publicly, for say local or topical chat groups? E.g. "Canada", or "Meshtastic Support", "BurningTesla", or "Cats"? Is this a thing? Can it be a things?

When I check local groups info, I see links to online comms like Telegram (ew), Discord, Matrix, etc. I don't see Meshtastic channel links.

I'm trying to get my home node high enough for LOS to other parts of town. The house unfortunately has a full hip roof, so I can't attach anything without going through the shingles. My current setup is a pole attached to an 8' garden fence. That gets me to about 15' AGL.

Based on the homes around me I need at least 30' of height to clear their roofs. I've given up on trying to get above the trees because they're old Oaks 50'-100' high.

I keep seeing collapsing fiberglass poles online but they're advertised as a temporary setup. Anyone have recommendations for at least a semi-permanent pole or small tower?

So, I'm scratching my head, and hoping someone here can help, or have had a similar experience?

I live at 500msl in a small rural town of about 300 people. Started experimenting about a month ago and have a few T1000-E's and a station g2. The waterproof enclosure I ordered for the g2 finally arrived a few days ago and it's now up on a modest pole attached to my house (about 4m high), signal is much better and we only have 3 regular members of our mesh at this stage (still testing before advertising to locals).

Even before raising the g2, we'd had a few times when a couple of nodes would appear for a few hours in the early hours of the morning. We are in an area popular with hiking and 4wders so this isn't particularly unlikely especially as these are given as ideal use cases for Meshtastic, and sometimes people do get up early for this kind of thing!

But last night, we had an absolute explosion of nodes in the early hours. All had gps locations of around a very specific area on the coast, approximately 180km away as the crow flies. I think one or two of them had been seen before but I'd wiped my nodeDB a few times since then so not completely sure.

The similarity to previous times when we saw a few nodes in early hours, but many more (with g2 higher, makes sense regardless of how), makes me wonder now if something atmospheric is happening.

Could this be tropospheric ducting? If so has anyone managed to actually communicate with this kind of connection over MT?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_propagation

I've been taking CERT disaster relief (DR) classes, put on by the city at the local fire department (we live in an area prone to earthquake, flood, and fire). The subject of communications came up and they mentioned walkie talkies in neighborhood caches, but nobody had any idea about models, ranges, etc.

Been casually looking at Meshtastic and keep seeing it mentioned for DR, but haven't come across any actual guides or implementations. For example, I can set up a router in my house, but there's no guarantee it will be standing during a fire, or if power will remain during an earthquake.

There are lots of questions (tech, redundancy, battery backups, range, node placement, while on-the-move, temporary setups, gateways to cell and cloud, etc). Was hoping someone had already figured it out so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. This would be first for my own neighborhood, then expand to city or county-wide services.

I've got another CERT class coming up next week and will ask the Fire Department folks for tips/advice as well, but thought I'd ask here about Meshtastic and maybe point them at some resources, if asked.

For research, am making my way through posts on the Meshtastic site and read the Burning Man report. Also checked out Meshmap in my area (only two routers, one on top of a mountain, but possibly on the back side of it).

FWIW, background in tech, have a ton of ESP32s, RPis, and a few LoRa boards sitting around. Was looking at getting the T-Deck, but am going to hold off until I have a proper plan on what to do with it. Also want to document the process so hopefully come up with a reusable plan. Mainly looking for tips where to look next. TIA.