The Idiots Guide To Meshtastic - Long Range Comms!

unless you've been living under a rock you've probably noticed that there's a radio system that's sort of taking the World by a storm at the moment and that is Laura or long range 868 made Popular by mesh tastic and even more so by YouTube channels like Andy Kirby here in the UK and the comms Channel over in the US this easy to get into radio mesh network is a lot of fun but what does it do how does it work and how easy is it to get involved with welcome to an idiots guide so Laura stands for long range and it's a proprietary Communications technique in which little devices like this can talk to each other better still they mesh to create networks Laura uses license-free sub gz radio frequency bands and here in Europe we use EU 868 which is 863 to 870 and 873 mahz Laura enables long range Transmissions with low power consumption meaning these great little devices last a long time on a battery which makes them ideal for all sorts of applications better still this whole thing is completely off- grid meaning there's no Reliance on cellular networks or Wi-Fi they just work all you need is power a device like this can be linked to a smartphone even if it has no cell service when paired with an app like mesh tastic you can send messages via little radio packets to other nodes in the area that are public public and private messages should you wish to perhaps the most amazing thing is that the long range part is actually true in fact I made a contact from my home station directly to somebody over in St Helens nearly 28 mil away on 100 m of power to put that into perspective a starbo walkie-talkie will output around 500 M and a VHF UHF handheld on average 5 Watts so really impressive if you can't make a direct cont contact then the signal can hop via nodes in order to reach its destination and it'll automatically find the PATH that's most efficient now there is of course a lot more behind this but this is an idiot's guide and I was the biggest idiot when I first started dabbling with this before we go any further I've set up a Facebook group for Northwest UK users in order to share ideas setups and give one another an idea of who's around with a view to drumming up more activity in the area the simplest piece of Kit to use is this the htech Laura v32 this is sold to cover multiple bands and comes with an antenna of course this version is the EU 868 mahz board some people might be put off by thinking you have to sold a components or build these but they literally work out of the box and all that's required is an easy software Flash the antenna plugs into the UFL or ipex connector and they run off USBC power and you can leave it there should you wish of course you can wire up external batteries and all sorts but this is an idiot's guide remember it has two buttons one for scrolling through the little display and the other for resetting the power the antennas that come with these are small but you'll be surprised how good these can be with the right conditions like any radio system Outdoors as high as possible will give you the best chance but we'll come to antennas soon so you have the board now you need to flash it and mesh tastic has a great online flashing tool all you have to do for this device is go to the website in Chrome or Edge and select it from the list in this instance it's the htech V3 next you can select your firmware if you're unsure select the latest stable version then you can click Flash and a window will come up asking you to select the comport just select the one that's in the window and you can begin flashing this can take up to a couple of minutes and your node will reset when it's done so now the board has the mesh tastic firmware on you can go to the mesh tastic app on your phone I'm using this ulone handset for this node you can run multiple nodes from one phone but I prefer one phone per device because it's less confusing and I have them so why not the app is available on IOS and Android as well as Windows I'm using the Android version because it's the best one and is more user friendly than the iOS version in my opinion in the app click on settings click add and node will appear in the list when you click on the Node you'll be prompted with a Bluetooth pair code and after typing it in your node is connected make sure you select the correct region in this case we're using EU 868 and you can go ahead and name your node if you click this logo you can see all the noes received by yours and this will update all the time the most recently seen nodes will appear at the top of the list and you'll be surprised just how many you may pick up in 1 hour of messing around recently I logged eight new nodes in the space of around an hour and we got a bit of a group chat going on if you click the message icon to go into the long fast chat you can message other nodes think of this as an open group for anyone else to join in you can also direct message users privately as well one thing to note is that you have to be patient with messaging it's like putting a call out on the radio it sometimes takes a couple of goes depending on Signal quality if the tick appears in the cloud your message is being delivered by pressing and tapping Trace rout on somebody else's node you can see the communication path between you and another person the only other change I made was getting my nodes to Ping every 60 seconds this is good for range testing with other nodes because if you receive a signal every 60 seconds you know you're within range of that other node when you make changes they're uploaded to the device and then it'll reset as for power I originally used my loft base node with a power bank like this which gave around 48 Hours of power give or take I also use 18650 batteries in holders for power two but for the Loft node I eventually ended up running a short USB cable from the shack instead to power this 24/7 now you can leave things here and just wait for other people to show up but if you're using the stock antenna you may not have much look depending on where you are so let's look at antenna options as with any other radio system you're reliant on a good antenna these little stock antennas are good for what they are but there are bigger and better options which can enable you to reach longer distances this sort of router antenna is a good upgrade for short range use you'll need some of these ipex to SMA pigtails to enable it to be attached to your node though they're relatively inexpensive and can make a lot of difference if you want something a bit more substantial though you can go for a vertical like this I paid £18 for this off Amazon but at the moment prices seem to be inreasing with popularity this is ideal for mounting Outdoors on a pole or even in the attic and I've managed 20 km contacts from my attic on this antenna of course this is omnidirectional which means the signal spreads evenly 360° around it if you want to beam your signal in a particular direction then a Yari such as this is good for doing so this doesn't have an overly narrow low but is pretty directional I mounted it in the Attic in One Direction and and when I turned it I was receiving stations from a new Direction so bear this in mind I actually have two of these set up now looking in different directions for optimal coverage finally let's not forget mobile operation I use this magmount setup for mobile work and it's easy to just throw on a node and go out this is a great way of picking up new stations as well as range testing and makes the whole concept more portable the magnetic base isn't the best in terms of weatherproofing and these velvet bottoms usually have card underneath which disintegrates when it gets wet so I'd suggest a more substantial mag Mount before I wrap this video up an important point to discuss is coax if you use long and poor quality coax at these frequencies with such a low power level you'll end up losing most of your signal in the coax feeder lmr400 is great at extremely short lens but I tend to use these connectors to plug the node straight into the antenna creating the shortest feed Point possible possible if you have to use coax even short lens like this can tend to absorb signal so bear this in mind so that was the first idiot's guide to getting set up on mesh tastic with these really inexpensive boards if you have any questions or anything I've covered here then let me know and be sure to follow the channel as I'll be doing another one or two videos on this topic and lastly if you're in the northwest of England be sure to join the Facebook group [Music] [Music] 3

Channel: Ringway Manchester

Views: 787,450

Keywords:

Id: N3FXej9fqIk

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 04 2024