#MakeShitMonday, another #meshtastic edition...
This past weekend, @llorenzin and I were in western Virginia at a get-together for a cave conservation society that we're members of, and we worked on making more #mesh connections. Rather than testing in-cave like L shared above, we were testing how far we could get LoRa signals to reach above ground to see if we can connect the different properties / preserves in the area that the society owns. This would be a big win, since the entire area is in the national radio quiet zone for the Green Bank Observatory, so there's no cell phone reception, and two of the three properties we're trying to link together don't have landline service.
We started with the two closest properties: about .5 miles apart as the crow flies, with a significant hill between the two. L stayed at the first site (and hiked around and up and down one of the hills), and I drove to the other site (and stopped at various places then hiked around and up and down one of the hills).
We were armed with a couple of mesh radios, and we also had #GMRS radios so we could be in voice communication in parallel to discuss the testing as the mesh messages worked and didn't work and coordinate our movements.
Overall, the connectivity between our two radios worked much better than I was expecting! We were able to get messages through at many - but not all - of the points we tested, and we have a good idea about where to put a couple of nodes up in trees to get good connectivity between those two properties. (I was also pleased that the GMRS radios didn't have any problem talking at any of the points we tested.)
Next time we're in the area, we plan to do similar testing to see how best to connect in the other property. That one's a bit farther away so we'll probably need a bit more planning for where to position radios and may involve asking intermediate landowners whether we can put a radio on a hill in a tree.
