Hi all. Calling out for any meshtastic users in Sydney.
I’m based in North Kellyville, in the north-west of Sydney, and have only recently discovered Meshtastic. It has become very addictive, with my single node growing to four over the past month. I have a portable node for my wife & I (RAK4631 and Heltec respectively), a solar-build underway (RAK4631 in a Arlec solar light enclosure), and a PICO/Waveshare combination as my MQTT connection to msh/ANZ/NSW - and hopefully to also run either TC2BBS or Meshing About BBS.
Love to meet up and say Hi, swap experiences and lessons, and grow the mesh here in Sydney!
Hi Steve.
Names David. I’m out in the far south west at Mount Annan. Been into Meshtastic since the beginning of this year. Been into the radio hobby since 1988. I ama licensed Ham, callsign VK2FRT. Have 4 nodes at present, Two RAKs, a Heltec V3 and a Heltec T114 (which is on ice at the moment given the issues it apparently has). Have the V3 inside in a Carbonite designed Case which I got before I got into 3D printing. Now I make my own cases if I need too. I have a RAK solar node on my house and am currently in the final testing phases of another compact RAK solar node which will be going up at a local high point to help link my mesh into the Sydney basin. Only just getting into the server side of things as well. Hoping the mesh grows big in Sydney!
Hope soon it will and to meet and chat with like minded Mesh users.
VK2AEK - Lane Cove here, I ordered some LoRa radios from Waveshare a few days ago, I’m interested in setting up a fixed site outside with a “terminal” inside, I was thinking about multiple radios and sector antennas…
The only downside to the Waveshare boards is there is no Bluetooth connectivity. Even if you attach it to a Pico Wireless and enable Wifi, the build doesn’t have the necessary bits for Wifi management using https://client.meshtastic.org/ - so you’re limited to setup via Serial initially, and then remote admin via Lora.
I like the idea of backhaul, wondering out loud if a yagi in SW Sydney and one in Cowra both pointing at each other and the modems set to Very Long Range/Slow with a longfast omni w/radio right next to the yagis to bridge and buffer the local mesh would work.
Would probably need some height at the sites and maybe a friendly repeater mid way.
I don’t know what yagis are but I would have guessed the minimum number of nodes would be 3? - with one at least high up in the Blue Mountains?
5 years ago I was talking to a mob who were interested in re-using old Telstra cable towers to set up an alternative / emergency network - I was going to put a new tower on the highest point of my block in Cowra - but although the company still exists (SouthCloud P/L), their website (southcloud.online) has disappeared unfortunately . . they would have been perfect to partner with . . Maybe I should get back to my contact and see what the state of play is?
a yagi is just a directional sector antenna, quite cheap, think roof TV antenna, perhaps a 60° beamwidth so you would need around six to cover 360° (omni).
The Yagi is a directional beam antenna, and while you can get them for 915Mhz LoRa unless you are trying to hit anoter specific node they aren’t really suited to building a mesh network of nodes in Sydney. I atteched a Yagi antenna diagram for you Philip.
I like your thinking! HF nodes would be an issue with antenna size but. 70cm is probably optimal.
SO you link them just the same as all the other line of site RF links around the metro area. You put nodes up in high locations where they can see each other, then everyone around these sites has their own nodes. One on the house that has a good connection to a hill node is the best. Then you can have a smaller node inside.
All depends on how you connect to your nodes. Most use Bluetooth or Wifi or PC. Some nodes have good Bluetooth range, like the RAKs, Others dont, so you may need an inside node.
This is basically how I am setting up mine. I have an inside node, a Heltec V3. Then i have a RAK solar node on my house (as attched in the picture), and soon ill be placing a clandstine node up in a hill about 1.5km away.
This node on the hill should link to a few other nodes out SW Sydney and other parts. My home solar node gets this guy at Oran park who pops up now and then, so the hill node should get deep into as far as Parramatta I am guessing by the RF simulations I’ve done online, as well as to the east where there are nodes in Engadine. It will also maybe connect to the Southern Highlands. One guy at Bargo was planning a node at Razorback. That node if it happens will get hit all over Sydney. As long as you set up to connect to other nodes around, eventually the whole city will be a mesh network. Go take a look at some mesh maps of the UK. Thats crazy there.
Right - so having Yagis pointing in roughly opposite directions, you could daisy-chain them from W Sydney, over the mountains and then to Bathurst and then to Orange and Cowra say . .
Yeah, I mean this gear is cheap, we could start a club, chip in to bulk buy say 10 solar “kits”, each kit could have up to 3 $20 radios & 3 antennas (2 directional & 1 omni) and organise with rural land owners (pitch it to them as a backup messaging system, who knows there might be a government grant available) to have the kit plopped on a bit of hilly derelict land.
I’ve always thought this yeat that breaking the Meshtastic distance record could be done easily. Its 254Km which is quite the feat given the low power they output. Thinking this could be smashed I started looking for places where you could set up two stations to try and break the record that have direct line of site. Brought me back to many years ago when I went out Western NSW to Narribri and visited the Mount Kaputar National park. In that park is Mount Kaputar, which is, if you weren’t aware, the second highest mountain in Australia after Kosiosko. Unlike Kosiosko it doesnt have tones of other mountains around it for 50Km, and from the summit lookout you can see 10% of the whole state. Mobile phones don’t work up there as they get swamped by cell tower signals and crash. Perfect spot to set up a Mesh node and see where you can get out too I think.
So I started using this site >- https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ Too look up some of the best places to go line of site from Mt Kaputar from, and I think with a decent Yagi on 915Mhz and a Small RAK setup on a tripod you could hit over 300km away easily. You would just have to be dedicated enough to drive all the way there and spend a weekend doing it.
Here is a Path from Mt Kaputar to Nyngan with just antennas 1 meter off the ground. As you can see direct line of site. This should work with the right antennas I think. If not, you drive north east for 15 mins and set up and try again till you get a hit.
Just scroll on the map to where you want to place yoru node, click the location. Fill out height above ground and antenna DB on the right, change region to ANZ and hit Run Model, and it does a guestimated calculation of your Meshtastic node range based on the 30db power mode public mesh nodes have.
You could but you will need to find locations and install nodes across a wide area to make hops on the mesh. You would need to set it up and test it.
You would be better off setting up some local nodes in your town and letting locals know, maybe even making some nodes to sell to them. I know Lismore has a couple of guys who have set up a bunch of nodes to cover the Lismore area for next time they have bad floods. Their mesh works extremely well the way its set up. Unfortunatly they are still trying to get locals into it.
