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@Edent I've been exploring LoRa as well. Here's my writeup about experimenting with MeshCore for a few weeks: https://mtlynch.io/first-impressions-of-meshcore/
@michael thank you - that was useful and instructive.
Always a delight to be sent random circuit boards in the post 😄
Not sure I'll have enough time before #FOSDEM to set up a full #Meshtastic node, but I'll give it a go!
Well, thanks to WebUSB I was able to flash this tiny board with MeshCore. It connects fine to my phone, but I can't see any other nodes.
The hunt continues!
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OK my #Meshcore friends, what am I doing wrong?
Board is on the 3rd floor (over 6m above ground height.
Powered on, connected via Bluetooth, by a window.
Set to UK long range.
Been up for about 30 minutes and hasn't discovered any neighbours.
I know there are a couple of repeaters near-ish.
Just a case of wait and hope? Stick it in the loft? Increase power?
Any help and speculation welcomed 😄
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Aha! I had to unbend the antenna 😁
Now receiving #Meshcore messages. Don't know if any of mine are being seen though.
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Well the #Meshcore is *sort of* working.
With it's new placement I can just about hear one repeater.
I'm receiving some messages, but I guess my antenna is to puny to send any.
My noise floor looks good (I think) and I've discovered a few nodes.
I think I need more power and/or a bigger antenna.
If you're on the mesh, feel free to send me a message and I'll let you know if it arrives (details above).
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@Edent I had to get a repeater in the attic before I got any decent reliable connection.
With radio, height appears to be key
@Edent@mastodon.social
UK long? I thought meshcore uses uk narrow.
UK long? I thought meshcore uses uk narrow.
@Edent either put it outside the window or further inside the room. To me, where it is, looks like it would block signal. It would literally “skip” — just a thought.
@Edent this doesn't help but I assumed Northampton wouldn't have any #meshtastic traffic and now I'm interested 😀
- problem is the window
- this type of antenna dont like to kink
- antennas love metal-bases to reduce noise from electronics
@Edent UK/EU Narrow. The default is wrong 
@Edent Before I dropped off, a large part of the UK moved to UK Narrow, so might be worth switching over
@Edent I had a board like that that didn't work at all, so perhaps quality is low. However, how far away are the repeaters and do you probably have a line of sight?
Also stick the antenna on the outside of the window for a while perhaps you have some foil in the glass. But first waiting a few hours is recommended
@Edent For Meshcore in the UK you need to change your radio settings:
Frequency: 869.618
Bandwidth: 62.5
Spreading Factor: 8
Coding Rate: 8
Transmit Power: 22
@Edent I'm glad the box wasn't summarily destroyed in transit for being too suspicious, and I hope you enjoy playing with it as much as we enjoyed making it.
The Femtofox team was strongly influenced by the loss of mobile phone towers in the Northern California wildfires. I still have a dream of solar powered linux nodes as part of a healthy mesh.
The reality is that it's just really really cool to play with.
@Pol nice to meet you 😃
@dpecos @zipkid woo! I'll try to find you. My Signal and other contact details are on https://edent.tel/
@Edent which one did you get? I might forestall all thinking and simply copy what you're doing ;)
@Edent whichever one is prevalent around you. There could even be both. MeshCore is well suited for wide-area mesh networking. Meshtastic is more intended for personal ad hoc meshes, like when hiking, but it can be configured to work well in an infrastructure-based mesh. You can mostly reflash between the two so there’s little difficulty in playing with both. Each project has a Discord with local threads, and many areas have their own very substantial communities.
