Fort Wayne Lora/Mesh Network

[Sailor]

I currently have four nodes deployed in Fort Wayne from the SW side of town, to 120 feet up downtown, and then further East at my office. The attached map shows 8 nodes in this area. I am sure there are more, many do not enable an internet connection to show on maps. The colored map is the coverage area of my nodes, showing my reach, with the antenna and elevation details entered.

We have some gaps to fill, right now I can text offline and encrypted 6 miles from my house to my brothers. We have a family group channel setup. I am 3D printing my enclosures and testing/building antenna's. I still need to upgrade the antenna at my office to connect it to the node downtown.

Anyone in the area that is interested in starting this, let me know. I will walk you through and provide printed enclosures.

 

[Chairman Gus]

Hey man, that looks sweet. I'm a guy from up north in Auburn and have been getting pretty interested in meshtastic lately. I would like to start and think it would be cool if I could put a few around town and manage to link up with the Fort Wayne mesh at some point. I have a buddy from Kendallville considering it too. Any help or advice you could give would be much appreciated! I've been doing research and think I know what I might want to go for but someone with experience would definitely be nice. Have a good one.

 

[Sailor]

Hey man, that looks sweet. I'm a guy from up north in Auburn and have been getting pretty interested in meshtastic lately. I would like to start and think it would be cool if I could put a few around town and manage to link up with the Fort Wayne mesh at some point. I have a buddy from Kendallville considering it too. Any help or advice you could give would be much appreciated! I've been doing research and think I know what I might want to go for but someone with experience would definitely be nice. Have a good one.

Great! Best way into it is to just buy a few and jump in. I would get a few Wisblock Rak kits to start and play with what range you are getting. There may be nodes already around you that you do not know about. I see a node around Garrett here in SW Fort Wayne, linking through my node 130 feet up downtown at my brothers. I do not have 100% reliable connection to my downtown node, building a yagi antenna to test. Join the Indiana Meshtastic FB group if you are on Facebook. Hollar if you need some 3d printing done.

 

[jsharmon7]

I just started reading about Meshtastic because of this discussion. Seems like it’s still in the early stages?

 

[Chairman Gus]

Great! Best way into it is to just buy a few and jump in. I would get a few Wisblock Rak kits to start and play with what range you are getting. There may be nodes already around you that you do not know about. I see a node around Garrett here in SW Fort Wayne, linking through my node 130 feet up downtown at my brothers. I do not have 100% reliable connection to my downtown node, building a yagi antenna to test. Join the Indiana Meshtastic FB group if you are on Facebook. Hollar if you need some 3d printing done.

I have joined the FB group and have been prowling the posts for sure. If you're getting pings off of Garrett then that's definitely a good sign for me. But alright, that sounds like a good starting plan then. I've looked online at maps of nodes and saw that there were very few around here, then worked out that not all of them are reported based on your and others reports. I think I'll mount one around my house and go from there.

While I don't need it at the moment, thanks for the 3D printing offer. I'm guessing you made/found a print suitable for these purposes? If I can get this ball rolling, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks.

EDIT: I said pings but I'm not sure if you can actually reach Garrett or just saw it on a map. Either way, just knowing that others around here are trying as well works for me!

 

[Sailor]

I am seeing Garrett on my node at my house, one hop away, assuming the hop is my downtown node. Hardly anyone enables internet and mapping locations. I did it just for a short time to encourage use.

 

[jsharmon7]

I downloaded the app but the map doesn’t show anything. Do I need to connect a radio first?

 

[Sailor]

Just turn on Map reporting and MQTT. It's the last few options under MQTT. Set precision to Medium. Set Map reporting to something like 900 or 1000 seconds. Your node will need to be connected to Wifi. I set mine for a fixed position near my home. Got them to show up for awhile then turned off MQTT and mapping. I am interested in radio contacts only not radio and internet.