Construction of the mesh is about to begin

So after my initial tests with the test repeater and still seeing no activity on either meshing system beyond what I was doing, the construction of the mesh is about to begin, the first RAKWireless Wisblock (RAK4651 paired to RAK19003 or RAK19007) for use as a repeater has been ordered, now I recommend these for repeater building as current draw is very low because these utilise the Nordic nRF52840 rather than the ESP32 found in most companion devices, this is important because these repeaters will run on batteries and be charged from a solar panel keeping the mesh going when the power goes off, which is the point here as we want it to be as totally off-grid as possible.

The RAK Wisblock on order is the foundation for the Anzio Catterick repeater, this Wisblock will be fitted to a solar panel and a case (zerofox3D Hermes has been chosen for this but as yet not ordered) next month, at this point it is hoped I can install the antenna and put the repeater up on the air.

The antenna will be an outdoor rated antenna, most likely a Paradar antenna, this will have some gain on it which in LoRa applications due to the very low power levels used by transmitters (around 155mW) helps a lot, height also does help and while I am in a top floor flat the higher I can get the antenna the better, this I can work out when I come to deploy the repeater.

I also have a companion device arriving on the day of writing this, the Heltec Wireless Tracker, while this has a build-in GNSS it does not mean that this feature will work with MeshCore, which the Richmondshire Mesh will be using due to it only transmitting as needed and doesn't spit out constant telemetry and not all devices repeat so the mesh is less likely to become congested and messages, which is the whole point, do not fail to reach their destination.

Now is a good time to get companion devices ready and you can also start putting repeaters on air yourself if you would like to do this, if you have an old Heltec V3 lying around in a drawer why not put Meshcore onto it, the firmware is on the Meshcore website for all supported devices and the Meshcore app is in the usual app stores.