Anzio Catterick repeater to be commissioned in the coming weeks

The first main repeater of the Richmondshire Mesh, Anzio Catterick, is expected to be commissioned in the next couple of weeks, an order will be placed with zerofox3D for the Hermes enclosure, a solar panel and some 18650 cells plus a charger for these will be ordered from Amazon at around the same time, as a temporary measure the antenna on the repeater will be the Paradar indoor antenna I currently have until a proper outdoor one can be obtained later, the solar panel will be for charging, the 18650s are for overnight operation.

As the repeater is based on RAKWireless WisBlock hardware then current consumption is expected to be low and the batteries are expected to last without the repeater ever powering down, it can also be OTA updated via Bluetooth as required (the BLE antenna will be installed on the repeater for this purpose).

Anzio Catterick is to be located at my home address and should in theory cover from the far side of the Allenby Road estate to the Richmondshire Walk shopping area, I will be taking out the spectrum analyser with an 868MHz antenna fitted and one of my companion radios to run tests, of course this all depends on where I mount the repeater and ultimately how high up it is and also what antenna is on it at the time.

Once this is commissioned I can then set to work on building the next repeater I want to deploy which will be CRDARS Hudswell, using identical hardware to Anzio Catterick and should in theory cover a link over to Richmond and potentially being at a higher location fill in some gaps that Anzio Catterick can't manage to do.

So lets get this mesh built