I’m a private pilot and Mesh bug. Here’s my story…
I built a Mesh router using WisBlock starter kit, 6 ea 18650 batteries (for power robustness), 5db antenna, and a 5 V solar panel. This was placed on a 5800’ prominent mountain in NW Idaho.
I thought it’d be cool if I had my radio automatically report my position while flying in the backcountry. Wifey can keep an eye on me. I selected “smart position” and transmit every min in the position setting. On a recent flight to Pasco WA, my mesh worked when I achieved about 3000’ altitude near Pasco. Quick check on my Nav showed I was 140 miles out from the router. Amazing what a 1 watt chirp signal can do.
Now I’m interested to see how my router survives a brutal winter up there. I have a new idea to encapsulate the antenna and radio components in a 3” PVC pipe and attach an external solar panel to it. I could light up all of SE WA with just a few routers. I’m reading the cold wx router/battery threads with great interest. For now, I’ll see how hard this first winter goes on my router.
One problem I’m troubleshooting is the ability to poll another radio (for a position update). It’d be nice to passively keep track of others in my network when they are out and about in the backcountry.
Also - I’m wondering if it’d be possible to hard wire a radio in my airplane to (stand alone) automatically report my position when I start up (without connecting to my phone GPS). Would simply adding a GPS node directly to the block be all I need for auto position reporting?
For the router, I followed the first build shown on “The Comms Channel” on YouTube. He also tests some antennas there and it was the 5db antenna that I’m using on the router. I think you can use a 3” PVC pipe and stuff the antenna, WisBlock, and batteries inside. Then seal it up for a more robust container. That will be my next build.
Also on that channel he shows using a flexible antenna on your handheld. That’s what I had with me in the plane. I built up a bunch of these and played around with different containers I bought on AliExpress. Belt clip on the backside. For batteries - I used “battery Hookup” and bought some surplus 18650’s. 30 batteries for about $45. Battery cradles, micro switches, antenna adapters all on Amazon or AliE.
I have no experience using mesh over the sea but……
I believe 26 miles is the over the horizon distance for someone on the beach to be able to send a signal at least that far. Mounting a router at 1500’ would certainly extend that range significantly. Wouldn’t know until you put it to the test.
That said, I selected “repeater” and retransmit “all” messages on my repeater since I expect low to no outside msg volume. 5db antennas for starters but you can play around with bumping that up. I’d keep all the mobile units in client mode. Maybe others here can chime in.
You could also put a simple UHF/VHF 10w voice radio repeater up there as it too is limited to line of sight to compare/contrast with your mesh system. Some inexpensive handhelds have a repeater function built in and can be connected to a solar panel for continued operation.
This is a very interesting scenario and I think you may have surprising results. Keep me posted on your project .
