Anyone else in the Gulfport, Ms area? I’m outside the city but working on trying to build a resilient mesh network so we can have comms after a hurricane.
Side note: anyone have tips on how to approach businesses with large buildings to ask about placing a node on their roof?
I have a few up in Ocean Springs and adding more. There is also a guy from Latimer, I think that is putting up nodes in Biloxi and Latimer.
Sweet! I’m hoping to get some regional nodes setup on high points in the area, hopefully we can get some more people in the area and start getting nodes setup.
I’ve got some lilygo devices in hand and am working on designing a solar node.
I have a couple of solar nodes up now but, waiting on some Wisblock for more. One Gateway and rest repeaters and clients. Are you on the map?
Nice! Nope, haven’t put them on the map yet, they’ve been moving depending on the day and my brother in law and I have been doing testing both up in lizana and down in Bay St. Louis with the same nodes.
My brother in law and I have been talking about connecting them to the internet but haven’t done it yet.
So I started putting together my prototype solar node to start testing if the single panel will be fine, I also got in contact with Harrison county emergency management as well as the owner of the 150’ tower off of county farm rd that is leased to Mississippi power/911 and am trying to find out more about putting a device on a tower without costing an arm and a leg. My goal is for this to be a resource for the community, essentially “emergency radio”.
That looks like a Heltec Lora 32. They are very power hungry. I had one that I tested with a 6w/5v solar panel and 6 3000mah 18650 cells and had it up for 3 weeks of testing. I t did pretty good even with some cloudy days and rain.
Now, I am testing a Wisblock with 1 3000mah, and a 3w/5v solar panel. It is amazing hasn’t even come close to dying.
I also have a Wisblock with 1 3000 mah, and 2w/5v solar panel and it too is doing great.
Also testing a Wisblock with 3 3000mah, and 6w/5v and it is doing fine.
Also just started testing Wisblock with 1 3000mah 19650 with no solar panel to see how many days it will run.
That would be awesome to get some on towers and water towers. The higher the better.
I have one up on a pole outside and can reach the guy in Biloxi at the the Beau Rivage. That is 8.5 miles.
I don’t have any of the belted devices, not yet anyway, the one in the cage is a Lilygo V1.3, that has the SX1276 chip, and the other devices I have are the lilygo T3S3 with the 1262 chipset.
I just took apart some old battery backup packs and will be using those 18650’s for cells.
How high is your pole? Most I’ve gotten is a little over 2 miles but that was up here in lizana and it’s a bit hilly.
My place sits at about 25’ and my pole is about 25’. That is the one that connects to Biloxi which is 8.5 miles. I hope to find some places close to the waterfront and higher places but I don’t know many people around here to talk to. I would also like to find some places in downtown Ocean Springs. I run a gateway at times which connects all over the world/US.
New to the group. In the Jackson Metro area thinking about setting things up here. I do deploy there for hurricanes etc so I am debating a pelican case of units for team members when we come down as a redundant form of comms.
Welcome! I just saw this post as I haven’t been on in a bit.
I’m interested to see if I can get at least Harrison county onboard with having a few “router” role nodes on local towers, I think it could prove very useful after natural disasters.
I just got my prototype solar node buttoned up today, a single 10 watt panel, 2 18650 3,000 mAh batteries, and a Lilygo T3S3 that I did not disable WiFi or solar on.
We shall see if it discharges and at what rate, I set it on a fence with very good solar exposure and south facing.
I have good contacts around the state. I may can help you get permission down in that area. I will check next week…
That would be great!
Solar node testing is going well, the panel seems to be more than enough to keep the cells charged, I’m likely going to remove the panel this weekend and see ho long the cells will keep the system alive.
I traveled down to the silver slipper on Sunday and went to the top of the parking garage, no nodes connected in the short time I was up there before security asked me to leave because they “don’t like people sitting in their vehicles in the garage.”.
I also ordered a 5DB gain outdoor antenna as well as an 8.5DB gain antenna from Rokland, I’m curious to see if that improves my range at the house.
Also, using the data provided from The Comms Channel I used the radio mobile website to check the RF line of sight from near fazzios to near the silver slipper, with 10 meter tall antenna mounts, 5DB gain Omni antennas, and a TX power of .2 watts this is our estimated coverage. So my next steps will be to gather the funds to build small poles that will support solar nodes with the 5DB antenna near fazzios, the 8.5 near menge/I-10, and my brother in law sourcing his own antenna and system to go with his wisblock that he is building.
I have almost all of the hardware to build a second solar node, I just need to source an enclosure and some more 18650 cells, or possibly just use a standard LiPo pack wired in.
I had a chance to work on my solar node V2.0 the past weekend and this evening, I got the frame for the solar panel welded together, it will mount at an approximate 28* angle for adequate year round solar exposure, 4 18650 cells, and this one will be mounted 40’ in the air with an 8.5 DB gain antenna, I have found someone near the new bucees at menge Ave that will allow us to erect this pivot tower and guy wires, with this system we should be able to have 60% or better contact for most of Hancock and Harrison counties, I think that’s pretty good for one node. I am still unsure if the repeater or the router mode will be best for this system.
Also, if I recall correctly I ran the numbers on the RF map with a 5DB gain antenna at 30’ not the 8.5 at 40’, so we could see a 10% or more improvement from that.
@ManxMariner is this your node? The ocean springs repeater?
I’m finishing my prototype V2 solar node and put a 5DB antenna on it and it seems that I have connected from ground level up here by fazios.
Yes it is. I have 6 in use as of now. That is amazing reach. I have one now, that is much higher (Ocean Springs 06 Repeater). I hope to start moving some this week. I pick up the guy over at the Beau Rivage pretty good. If you have questions let me know. I have several different solar setups that I have tested.
What are your node names? Is that Fazios Home and Farm Center?
Yep, Fazzios home and farm center is almost exactly 1 mile north west of where I am.
So all the nodes listed in my screenshot are mine except yours. 6814 is a lilygo T3S3 that just has the stock (crappy) antenna on it that I typically use as a portable node so I do t have to re-connect my phone Bluetooth to see the status of my other nodes.
9ab4 is my v1 prototype solar node (also a T3S3).
The v2 solar node is my most configured device, it’s a lilygo LoRa V1.3 but it does have the 1262 chip on it.
The EE4C is a currently inactive node, it’s another T3S3 that I left with my brother in law to ensure that his wisblock kit was functioning when he puts it together.
The V2 solar node is what will be deployed just north of I10 on Visalia road, of my current node plans that one likely has the highest odds of being a solid contact for your repeaters.
I sent a test message on the primary channel earlier but I’m assuming that it didn’t reach your repeaters, I really think the repeater popping up on my nodes list was a stray data packet that somehow made it to me.
That would be pretty far for a connection. My guess would be someone running a MQTT server. Anyway, fun stuff.
Yall are way ahead of me. I have been waiting on parts…
