What’s the antenna gain? Generally you don’t want a high gain omni in the Wellington area, as many of our best relay sites are quite high up. A high gain omni puts those sites in the weaker part of your antenna’s radiation pattern, which is the opposite of what you want.
How long is the coax run between the radio and the antenna, and what kind of coax? It’s pretty easy to lose a meaningful amount of signal in the coax, and given your RX issues is worth looking at if you have more than about a metre of it.
Can you see the NZV1 / NZV2 nodes? Those are up on Mt. Marua on SF.
When you were on LF, could you see 4NTo?
If you’re located in Clouston Park, are you on the southwest side of Fergusson Drive? There isn’t a high SF site with LOS directly into that area, but the NZV nodes should see some of it. The other side of Fergusson should be significantly better.
Thanks, I think the antenna is probably at around 3-4dBi gain for 918MHz, no coax. It’s directly connected to the SMA. The map shows 4NTo and 4NTn near us, seen an hour ago. It shows the NZV2, but not placed on Mt Marua. It is placed in Brown Owl, on the Main Road North. NZV1 is unseen. I realise now the UP01 in Clouston Park was seen 3 days ago, so before the change. That explains something. When on LF I could also see 4NTo, yes.
I’ll take another node I have for a walk when the weather’s better, to see what it can see on SHORT_FAST, and with some message trials.
That antenna should be fine. 3-4dBi is about right for the area IMO. And directly connected, as you have it, is ideal .
4NTo is located in Timberlea, and is still on LF to provide coverage of Upper Hutt for that mode - if you saw it on SF, you didn’t see it directly (i.e. you probably got that beacon via a bridge and some extra hops). Eventually, that location will be a dual-mode SF/LF bridge site. LF coverage provided by 4NTo in Upper Hutt currently looks like this:
4NTn is located in Kingsley Heights, and is on SF. Upper Hutt coverage from it looks like this. It’s the best SF site in Upper Hutt, but unfortunately Clouston Park is one of the few areas it cannot see. Chances are, you’re getting it by bouncing off the hill on the other side of the valley.
The SF node with the best coverage into Clouston Park is actually Boulder Hill (4NTf), which does a pretty decent job of reaching the parts of Upper Hutt that 4NTn doesn’t. That one unfortunately went off-air early on Saturday morning due to a serious battery fault, and I currently have it back at home for rebuilding. It should be back onsite this week sometime, after which - assuming you’re in a covered part of Clouston Park - your SF service should considerably improve. Combined SF coverage looks like this (4NTn red, 4NTf blue):
If you were seeing NZV2 down by Brown Owl, it was likely mobile at the time. That user has one home node, and one portable. NZV1 should have similar coverage to 4NTo, but weaker, and more shadowed close-in. I’m unsure whether or not it’ll cover Clouston Park.
Thanks for checking in. Sadly not, messages still say undelivered and not seeing anything written to ShortFast since the 2nd. I may try moving our node. If that doesn’t work, I’ll assume something else is up. All was well with LF.
Did you send “Upper Hutt test.” at 8:58am this morning? If so, it was received (which would mean your settings are correct)
I’ve temporarily moved 4NTo onto SF so you can test, as we know you were able to see that one on LF. Does that resolve your issue? I don’t want to leave it on SF, but it will at least help to narrow down where the problem might be.
Yes, that’s the message we sent! Unclear why the Meshtastic app reports messages as unsent since switching to SF. Also, we are not receiving replies. So it’s a write-only channel for now, for us.
Trying another test now.
EDIT: Success! The message with payload Upper Hutt Test 2 just went through, reported as such. Seems having 4NTo moved to SF did the trick. Good job.
That’s great news (and I can confirm that I received it) . I’ve moved 4NTo back onto LF where it’s supposed to be, now that you’ve had the opportunity to test with it.
Looking at the map I posted above, are you within one of the coloured areas (and if so, which one?), or are you on one of those little clear areas that neither 4NTn or 4NTf has a good path to?
I did manage to get a trace response from your node via 4NTn (Kingsley) this morning. Not receiving your nodeinfo beacon at all though.
Given that your beacon didn’t come through even after 4NTo was available, I do wonder if there’s more going on here than simply being in a marginal coverage area (loose coax connection or something maybe).
Thanks. Indeed there is no coax in the mix and the node has not even been moved since switching to SF. During LF it was working well. We don’t see beacon information in your msgs to SF, but at least we do see the messages. Notably the ShortFast channel is not the primary on this node, there is another SF configuration on slot 0.
Suspected as such as regards the beacon header! The Station G2 reports an RSSI of -11, and a signal to noise ratio of 13.3, from a node with built-in patch antenna about 5m distant.
That RSSI is great . Not the one I was looking for though - I’m keen to know what the one with the patch antenna is reporting (i.e. what does that second node think that the RSSI of your main one is).
I do suspect that the issue is most likely positioning / coverage, as everything else you’ve described sounds fine. Would you like me to check coverage for your exact coordinates? Happy to provide detailed analysis if you message me an address or exact lat / long. Probably best not to put that info in this thread directly though.
My apologies, I meant that the Nano G2 Ultra node reports the Station G2 as having an RSSI of -11. Seen from the Station G2, the G2 Ultra, has an RSSI of -15. 5 meters between them. These G2’s are real performers.
Thanks for the offer of looking into positioning and coverage. I’ve got some travel coming up and will take these two beauties with me. On return, I’ll look into all this again and may reach out for some diagnosis if they end up in the same location as they are today.
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. I’ve moved 4NTo back onto LF where it’s supposed to be, now that you’ve had the opportunity to test with it.
. Not the one I was looking for though - I’m keen to know what the one with the patch antenna is reporting (i.e. what does that second node think that the RSSI of your main one is).