My apologies for the delay. I get pulled in many directions with my projects and the world situation.
After taking into consideration the intelligent comments above, I don’t recommend adding the low noise amplifier. It would also get very hot and cause the node name to disappear to other nodes randomly. I removed it and all is well.
Also we have had some cold below freezing days here and the TTGO was going into a constant reboot. This build will need some type of heat tape. I believe there is a thread in the forum discussing this and batteries.
If you still want to build, you are left with the case, a TTGO and a sparkfun solar charge unit. I would reference their site for important background information. Click the sparkfun MMPT link above then click Documents for schematics and data sheets.
This might be a stupid question but would it be possible to put two devices close to each other and use one for receiving and the other for longer range sending? If one is without amplifier and the other with, one could receive + send and the other only send? And they could sort out their confusion between each other. Where the receiver of the amplifier is disabled and it instead just relays from a cabled source to the one with amplifier from the untouched device?
I’m sure that setup might be possible, just not sure if it would provide much benefit.
I remember reading about mesh nodes with two transceivers being the ultimate in a mesh network setup. Can’t remember why though.
If you are after a big transmitter and a highly sensitive receiver, the EByte E22-xxxM30S on paper is a great module. Haven’t seen any practical testing of it yet though. I have a couple I need to get going again.
Aha! Do they work for meshtastic? Where can I buy those?
Yes they do but they are just the LoRa transciever part. It needs to be paired to a ESP32 or NRF52. On aliexpress here.
Thanks!
So I guess for EU that would be this:
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/33019939434.html?spm=a2g0n.detail.0.0.47021dbdH21eS5&gps-id=storeRecommendH5&scm=1007.18500.187585.0&scm_id=1007.18500.187585.0&scm-url=1007.18500.187585.0&pvid=66e0d8e5-6d31-40c5-aa6b-6c3ad8d03c21&t=gps-id%3AstoreRecommendH5%2Cscm-url%3A1007.18500.187585.0%2Cpvid%3A66e0d8e5-6d31-40c5-aa6b-6c3ad8d03c21%2Ctpp_buckets%3A668%230%23131923%2368_668%23808%234094%23190_668%23888%233325%239_668%234328%2319935%23652_668%232846%238111%23412_668%232717%237564%23613__668%233374%2315176%23452&browser_id=4b07bc5a38154289982c4c1c26115ec5&aff_trace_key=2433a69638424868a8144f17579e4caa-1605201131270-00821-neZOr3oc&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=loygi2uynycavp6p175c41cd1e8130acc3f3ce128a&gclid=&imgsrc=ae01.alicdn.com%2Fkf%2FHTB1DuPUXL1G3KVjSZFkq6yK4XXad.jpg_640x640Q90.jpg.webp
Do you have some instructions for how to solder and which components to add? I never did anything like that before but would love to learn!
The 900M30S I linked to covers 850~930MHz. You need the M variant (SPI) rather than T (UART). Yea I could certainly help you or @Corvus might have some boards available for the NRF52 and E22-xxxM30S.