Meshtastic Long Lines Relay Tower Station

hey guys welcome back to the channel and today wow I got to tell you mesh tastics been actually pretty incredible you w't believe all the people I'm getting right now and I just got the one up on my roof look at this it just goes on and on and on and so many people are showing up on here a lot of ham radio call signs there's a guy dingleberry mesh tastic just uh some of them don't really tell me where they are road trip from Toronto okay there's Bert the raccoon we got like everybody uh you can think of here it's pretty pretty cool um really enjoying this uh yeah the Tom uh that's actually the Toronto mesh Network and uh yeah so there you go guys look at this V3 xof he's obviously a ham um this one here is the Kitchener waterl area amateur radio club.org so yeah really cool been getting lots of lots of guys even got a guy that was about 70 km away and I'm just using a t- beam on the roof with uh Hy directional antenna I did that in my previous video so what I'm going to do now is I've got a couple hell techs here and the project I'm going to do is build put these two hell TXS and I'll show you what a little htech is it is a cute little board that's the whole mesh tastic system really cool and the battery plugs in the back so I'm going to put a couple of those batteries in in that box I'm going to put two helex in there and then we're going to have these uh end connectors coming through I'm going to drill holes in this water type box we going put the end connectors through this will be mounted on the side of the Tower and we'll have some short run of LMR 400 and this is a Wilson Cellular antenna 700 to 2700 this is a log periodic antenna look at that it's pretty cool um I have a nano I bought one it's right here an Nano VNA and I've already checked this antenna and it had very good uh SWR at 96 mahz which is what mesh tastic is using so the idea here is to set two of these up on the tower one is going to point down towards Toronto and the other one is going to point the other way and these two radios will mesh with the current radio and I'm basically going to create a relay station which is going to be really cool mesh tastic with uh directionally intense um should be cool I'm getting kind of excited here building this uh with the results I've had with just uh you know it's going crazy here with so many people I think if I went to directional antennas oh my friend is here if I went to two directional antennas it could be a really long range uh repeater station I could probably with one of these point it down to Toronto get a really good signal and allow the people down in Toronto to mesh with me and then relay that on much further on the other direction and uh yeah so what we're going to do is in this box I'm going to put the two htecs in there two batteries and then I'm going to run 12 volts in here and I'm going to have a couple of these voltage Regulators which uh it's just an uh what is that an LM 317 voltage regulator has a little heat sink on it um not a switching power supply this is linear but these things are really cheap a couple of dollars on Aly you turn that screw right there to set the voltage so I will have 12 coming in and five coming out which will power the HTE through the USBC connector and also charge the battery that will be plugging in back here so there you go guys I'm going to get to work I we're going to first program these uh these htech get them operational and showing up and then we'll start to build the case here with the connectors protruding through these connectors here protruding through and then from there to here I will use some LMR 400 and uh when the weather improves a little bit it's still very cold and we got got quite a bit of snow the other day a lot of it's melting now but really sucks the weather hasn't been that great even though it's supposed to be spring now but uh yeah when the weather improves a little bit warms up a little bit I'm going to climb the tower and I will install this up on the tower which is going to be really really fun okay guys let's get to work okay guys so the first order of business here is we need to flash these htech with the mesh tasti firmware and and the way you do that is we just plug it in my computer here on the side just push that in and voila it is connecting yeah connecting failed because it's not set up and waiting for Laura data and here we go so you go over to Flasher Mish ic.org you select your device in the pull down here htac V3 let's go over here and pick a firmware version I was using the one all 2222 tws with my previous one uh these are the stable betas I guess I'll just use the same one and uh let's do the flash continue okay some configuration is required full erase and install let's go yep did I do something wrong there hold on I need to select the right one here which one is it is it that one kind H I don't think that was the right one hold on is it the Bluetooth pereral device oh getting something more going on there H let's go back here try this one ah there we go that looks more like it esp32 detecting chip type so it is an esp32 also running on here and the screen is blank which shows us it is doing something very good wow this takes a while like it's only 16% so I'm just going to stop the video and when it's done start the video again unless you guys want to wait actually you know what let's wait then you get to see the whole process here what's interesting is I didn't have to press the program button or the reset button on here see that at the above the connector there's a program button didn't have to press that seems to be all automatic that little coil sticking up is actually the Bluetooth antenna you can see that little gold coil so where are we we are 58% it's running at this B right here okay we're almost there 75% so what's going to happen next is I need I'm going to have to pair this with a Bluetooth device I have another tablet so I'm going to get that and I'm going to pair it up with that tablet for configuring it because once once this is done there we go oh there's more to do this is going quick oh boy there's more at least it's a very simple process to program with this web uh web programmer flasher mesh. org just plug it in and the whole thing is USB powered and uh yeah let's hope it's done now 80 84 87 wow we're almost there 90 here we go guys okay there we go that is what I want to see yep wow it's already ready so now I just need to set up the Bluetooth to pair with it it looks like it's done it is done guys okay so I'm going to get another tablet and we're going to try to set up the Bluetooth now stand by oh what is that it's doing more debug okay okay so with that tablet sitting over there I went out and got another tablet and this one basically doesn't doesn't have anything much on it we got to install first of all does it have internet yes it does oh sign in okay standby okay guys she's plugged in and she is waiting but we first have to uh install the mesh tastic apps you got to go over to the Play Store here and look for mesh mesh tastic there's mesh tastic there we go that's it right there so we are going to install that and uh shouldn't be too long here we hope pending okay well I'm just going to stop the video and I'll be right back okay it finally installed and now we can open it and here we go welcome to mesh tastic we'll skip that okay what is this none disabled okay so now we got to parir it and uh we need to go Bluetooth setting let's go look for it in Bluetooth connections Bluetooth is on there it is there mesh tastic so we go there and the magic number will appear over here so there we go 526 526 097 097 and voila just like that we are paired with this htech okay so now if we go back there it is there and you can see it's doing all kinds of over here look at that it's getting all excited okay so that's its name and I'm going to change that name go back here we're going to call it zap I make it all big zap what else do we call it H the zap relay okay that sounds good sounds good to me done okay so and it is now rebooting there it comes up and it's only a matter of time before it starts to show up over here I would think so we'll keep an eye on things um okay guys I am going to go make some more changes to it oh region yeah we got to set the region this is important guys this is the frequency we want to be in the US US frequency okay and again it is now rebooting oh we got to connect an antenna to it too okay yeah okay guys stand by we're almost there it's getting we're getting close okay I got her plug in and uh there we go it's operational set it uh to the US frequency and I put an antenna on there and sure enough there it is the zap relay so we are operational and this is it here it's control on this tablet so we're going to make a few little changes the same as what you go into the radio configuration and uh go over here radio configuration we are device right now it's set as a client and this noal thing down here sends out kind of advertises itself every I think it's 3 hours or five hours I'm going to change that to 300 that is going to advertise us every five minutes and client I'm going to be router client and I'm going to send that to the device and there it goes it's rebooting updating it so delivery confirm so there we go it is operational okay guys see there's two antennas there they look identical how do you tell them apart one of them is a 900 MHz antenna the other one is around 3155 pretty much you can't tell them apart the only way I can tell them apart is this one looks more tarnished so I know that this one's been around longer that's probably the 315 this one here is my 900 and uh the way to find out is with the VNA meter and this thing is pretty cool so what I'm going to do is I am going to we'll first start with the one that I pretty sure is 315 and we're going to screw this on here like this okay and yep sure enough see the yellow line there okay go like that right in there and I can see you know it's 351 actually 350 so that is not the antenna I want to use for mesh tastic so get rid of that one and plug in this one but otherwise you know uh be pretty yeah look at that much higher frequency this antenna and bring it down here right there what do we got 910 megahertz that is the antenna we want to use with mesh tastic okay guys see how that works pretty cool these are only about hundred1 and some dollars on Amazon you can do a million different things with this thing uh it doesn't just tell you the resident frequency of the antenna but you can do SWR you can do all kinds of cool stuff it's got a touchcreen here all these different menus you can go through it's pretty cool good good uh good little device to have okay guys okay so now we're going to be doing a bit of construction here and I've got my water tight box here and I've marked it where I want to run these these will be in the bottom of the box this one is going to be for the power that is about a/2 in hole I'm going to drill for that and to the left and the right will be these connectors here and as you see they got the watertight ring and everything so these end connectors for the two antennas are going to go on each side so now I'm going to go down to my basement and I've got what we call a Christmas tree bit you know multi size you know more deeper you go the bigger the hole and I'm going to drill those holes and uh then we can build this thing it's going to be good okay guys stand by okay I finished drilling the holes and mounting the hardware and uh there we go how about that so this is going to be nice and watertight when this this box I got for about I think it was less than $20 off of Amazon it's got nice rubber o-ring in the lid uh nice L nice tight locking down uh snaps here so should be nice should be a nice little waterproof box up in the tower to accommodate two hell taxs I'm also going to put in uh two of these batteries one for each radio and two voltage Regulators so all of that I'm going to have in this little box should be good okay guys I'm going to build it now okay guys as you see htech relay tower has no G GPS and that is because the htech boards don't come with a GPS however I did a little bit of reading and uh there is a way to add a GPS to the htech boards and the recommended GPS is not this one but I just happen to have this one and guess what it actually works a BN 180 GPS will work now you go into the settings let me try to get this Focus there we go enable GPS and uh down below uh pin 37 or actually G gpio 37 you need to set that on the receive pin GPS receive pin the other ones really don't matter I was just experimenting but um as you see there red and black wire is ground and 3.3 volts and the white wire is the data coming from the GPS and uh that is pin 37 that's the one I'm connected to and it is working I am you know I got the dump data there going uh can't really show it to you but uh yeah it is working so momentarily we're probably going to see the GPS show up there for htech Relay Tower okay guys okay guys I just about got it complete here and it is coming along just beautifully like look at this guys got uh uh pointed out power supplies on each side separate power supplies for each one we got two eltechs here and here these are the end connectors I've got the power coming in I've wired it with some Cat 5 and as you can see inside there the blue and brown is one pair or one set of wires bringing power in 12 volts and the orange green as you can see there is the other one so each one is independently powered um I did have batteries in here but I ran into a problem with the batteries I was using the charger circuit on the htech is not powerful enough it started to get kind of hot didn't want to blow up the htech that would be hell so here we go guys I am going to turn on the power here and uh there they both go and uh as you see the one on the left is upside down well guess what we can do this is so cool we can flip the screen here so let me do just that what am I doing flip screen there we go we're going to send that and look it is rebooting now I seen that setting in there before and I thought who would want to flip the screen well there you go yep now we got them both the same way so let me do a restart totally power off and on here it comes back and look at that they're both showing me the display the same way cool now now we know why there is a way to flip the screen is for stuff like this when you're doing custom work and one just happens to be upside down now the GPS right here is working and I am going to mount that right up in there and the reason being is when this closes like that this will be facing upward to the sky but yeah look at that that looks really cool very nice very nice I'm so happy when things come come along just absolutely perfect so next is to install this outside I'm going to test this for a little while at ground level with two antennas on it and uh if all goes well we will put it up high on the tower okay guys I'm outside now and I'm about to turn the power power on and there we go 12 Vols there's both mesh tastics powering up really cool okay guys so what's going on here I got two directional sector antennas on each side each one is connected to a mesh tastic htech radio a V3 and uh basically this makes a long range repeater station whatever is coming in one end would be through the mesh relayed out to the other and vice versa so right now we're doing a test going to be doing this for a few days just at ground level to make sure it's all working and if all goes well we're going to go way up there on the tower if those birds let me I'm going to have to send uh my cat Gideon up there you go get those birds good boy okay so there we go guys start testing this out it's looking good here nice watertight box dual power Regulators one for each of the mesh tastic radios oh we have the GPS sensor up in the top there as you can see it is functioning feeding GPS into this mesh tastic right here and uh on the bottom is our power entry to the center and we have end connectors and LMR just some short lengths of LMR 400 for the moment here but when it's up on the tower might run a little bit longer cables so this box is a little bit more accessible and at the very top of the tower okay guys oh I let Gideon go up there you're going to go up there and get those birds good boy gidy giddy good boy you'll get those birds we're going to go way up there should be pretty good let me zoom in so will be right up there somewhere okay guys

Channel: Peter Fairlie

Views: 26,401

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Id: ob6DhsqoU5I

Length: 29min 27sec (1767 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024