Experiments carried out

In preparation to fully begin deployment of the mesh I've been out doing some experiments, the first experiment was ping testing to my test repeater, these proved successful to the point I've now purchased a Heltec Wireless Tracker (it's like a V3 but it has GNSS on board (I don't simply refer to that as GPS as it receives more than the GPS satellites), I flashed MeshCore to this and left it at home in a bit of an awkward place as it's not cased (inside a mug) and did some private message testing and all the messages sent from the test node (a Heltec V3) made it back to the Wireless Tracker without having to rely on the repeater at any point, though there were a couple of times I thought it might need the repeater, the test repeater is based on a Raspberry Pi Pico using a Paradar indoor antenna, the test node and the Wireless Tracker both use a DIYMalls 868MHz antenna from Amazon (these were a pack of 4 with some pigtails), these are slightly smaller than the Paradar antenna.

With this in mind I am keen to get the mesh deployed over the course of the summer months, the RAK Wisblock on order should be here next week or the week after, all being well, and work can begin to construct that repeater AND get it on the air.

I've also looked at the datasheet for the SX1262 LoRa chip used in many of thesse devices, particularly the receive sensitivity and also put that through the Radio Mobile coverage plotting program with some temporary figures for mast heights and antenna gain, the results look promising but in practice they could vastly differ.

So let us get this mesh up and running as soon as possible