I am completely new to Meshtastic. Which of the two T-beams should i buy for the UK/EU? It says there are two frequencies used in this region, but doesn’t go into any detail about which is best or which is used most etc. So how do i decide which to buy?
Hopefully an EU person can chime in but the 433 will do better at going through walls, trees etc…
Lora in the EU is mostly 868 MHz so you should buy one of those.
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It really depends on your use case and how the 433MHz bands look in your area.
433 can be used by anyone commercially and non-commercially (even by amateur radio for voice) whereas 868MHz is more or less reserved for LoRa/Digital-Applications. If you are unlucky the 433MHz will work worse than 868 because of interferences of other services/things.
Another thing to keep in mind: The transmit power may be very limited. At 433MHz in Germany you are only allowed to transmit with an effective power of 10mW and 100% airtime whereas at 868MHz you are allowed to transmit with 500mW and 10% airtime (i think).
Despite of all those limitations I’m operating the 433MHz versions without any problems.
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I have been testing a few tbeams with meshtastic on 433 and 868 so far I have found that the SX1262 at 868mhz is much better than 433 with the sx1276.
I tested 0% signal at 868mhz at around 24kms this was fairly impressive as there was a building in the way of the signal I could get nothing on 433mhz here or at another spot I tested at around 6km.
I don’t know why this is exactly I can only assume interference
Antennas used:
433mhz
868mhz
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Did you ever find out what’s up with the 433mhz version? What board did you use for 433, and what settings?
I am quite surprised you didn’t get anything at all even at 6km. What was the max range on 433?
I have the same 433 antennae as you, from the same seller. I have the meshtastic 1.1 board, which is also the same as yours I guess?
I did quite a bit of work with Helium miners on 868mhz and was astounded at the distance achieved, albeit low loss coax, base vertical high gain antenna, band pass filter…also a radio ham and find interference on 433mhz on quality equipment sometimes at unacceptable levels.