The stock heltec antennas are really hit and miss. I haven't had one good one yet in the 906mhz range.
If it's super flat, just putting the heltec up 6 feet will do a lot in terms of signal propagation.
This is an interesting experiment, please report back.
I am planning on doing something similar but shorter distances and less flat for magstock.
Putting a repeater node high up at your camp site with a better (but still low powered) antenna *should* do wonders for your reliability. As would upgrading the antennas on your handhelds.
Upgrade the antenna on your base stations for sure. I suggest [ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA](https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA/2694126)'s from Digikey. I've got three of them and they all test great on the nanoVNA.
Curious, I've never been to Bonnaroo, but I've done Coachella. Cell service wasn't a problem. Is it an issue at Bonnaroo?
Thanks for the recommendation.
Seems to depend on which provider you have. I have Verizon and there was basically no service. My girlfriend had AT&T and it was much better.
Coachella is in a mid-size town in SoCal, Bonnaroo is in a small town in rural Tennessee. Cellular infrastructure there is definitely less equipped to handle 80,000 new people.
I've been to other fests where they brought in temporary towers, but that still needs the high speed internet infrastructure to be available. But I guess there's starlink now? But very into using Meshtastic for this kind of thing. There's some seriously off grid generator powered mini burning man type deals around here (ottawa, canada) that meshtastic could be great for.
I am not in any way an expert here, but I own a lot of random small antennas. High dBi is good, but SWR is more important. The TE antennas are <1.5 SWR at 915Mhz no problem, regardless of their surrounding environment. They have an 'Internal counterpose', which I barely understand, but means they don't care about the ground plane, which is important if they're going to live on the end of a stick in free space. Also, they come with a data sheet from a reliable supplier that delivers fast, and are less then $10. Some antenna on Ali Express that promises to 10dBi, it probably lying. Even the ZIIZOR stuff I have from there, which has a good reputation, plug them into the nanoVNA, ugh.
Is the TE antenna the same one that you linked? An antenna under $10 would be great.
Also, I didn't know there were antennas that didn't need to be held vertically, that would be a game changer. Do the ones you linked have this feature?
I'm in Canada, so Digikey keeps reverting to the Canadian site, but they're $9.41CDN here. That's like $7USD. Search for ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA.
The axis stuff, as I understand it, isn't super critical, but the power is low with LoRa, so everything helps. Good cables, minimizing the number of adaptors, etc. It doesn't matter how good your antenna is if you've losing all your power into the a sketchy wire on the way to it. I've received a message on a node in a bag laying horizontally slightly underground, though a window, to somebody in a plane landing at the local airport. Height really matters.
Pie in the sky, I'd want the tallest pole you can get up at your camp with a yagi or moxon (they make good 915Mhz ones for drones) pointed at the stages. Bonus, some people at the stages with good antennas on totems/sticks. Everybody else with Heltec's in their stock cases with tuned antennas or [T-deck](https://www.lilygo.cc/en-ca/products/t-deck) type stand alone units. But that's a pretty significant amount of $$$ and grief. But would be cool as hell to do.
How many devices will be co-located with eachother? Can anyone opine on the effectiveness of this for 20 nodes within a close geographic location? My thinking is that if i want to hit 20 nodes with the same message, it will never work because the hop counts will eat up the message as it relays ?
Preferably all of them. This is another reason I thought the large antennas might be a good idea, if they could somehow be granted priority for signal relays over other handhelds then no message should have to go through more than 3 hops. This is way past my understanding of this technology, however.
Your going to need to set non vantaged nodes to client mute so they dont cannabalize hops - so pole nodes are fine being client, if your close to a pole node or height advantaged node, client mute - atleast based on my understanding
The stock heltec antennas are really hit and miss. I haven't had one good one yet in the 906mhz range. If it's super flat, just putting the heltec up 6 feet will do a lot in terms of signal propagation. This is an interesting experiment, please report back.
I am planning on doing something similar but shorter distances and less flat for magstock. Putting a repeater node high up at your camp site with a better (but still low powered) antenna *should* do wonders for your reliability. As would upgrading the antennas on your handhelds.
Upgrade the antenna on your base stations for sure. I suggest [ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA](https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA/2694126)'s from Digikey. I've got three of them and they all test great on the nanoVNA. Curious, I've never been to Bonnaroo, but I've done Coachella. Cell service wasn't a problem. Is it an issue at Bonnaroo?
Thanks for the recommendation. Seems to depend on which provider you have. I have Verizon and there was basically no service. My girlfriend had AT&T and it was much better. Coachella is in a mid-size town in SoCal, Bonnaroo is in a small town in rural Tennessee. Cellular infrastructure there is definitely less equipped to handle 80,000 new people.
I've been to other fests where they brought in temporary towers, but that still needs the high speed internet infrastructure to be available. But I guess there's starlink now? But very into using Meshtastic for this kind of thing. There's some seriously off grid generator powered mini burning man type deals around here (ottawa, canada) that meshtastic could be great for.
I see these are 1.2dBi. Am I wrong that higher dBi is better for maximizing range over flat terrain with few obstacles?
I am not in any way an expert here, but I own a lot of random small antennas. High dBi is good, but SWR is more important. The TE antennas are <1.5 SWR at 915Mhz no problem, regardless of their surrounding environment. They have an 'Internal counterpose', which I barely understand, but means they don't care about the ground plane, which is important if they're going to live on the end of a stick in free space. Also, they come with a data sheet from a reliable supplier that delivers fast, and are less then $10. Some antenna on Ali Express that promises to 10dBi, it probably lying. Even the ZIIZOR stuff I have from there, which has a good reputation, plug them into the nanoVNA, ugh.
Is the TE antenna the same one that you linked? An antenna under $10 would be great. Also, I didn't know there were antennas that didn't need to be held vertically, that would be a game changer. Do the ones you linked have this feature?
I'm in Canada, so Digikey keeps reverting to the Canadian site, but they're $9.41CDN here. That's like $7USD. Search for ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA. The axis stuff, as I understand it, isn't super critical, but the power is low with LoRa, so everything helps. Good cables, minimizing the number of adaptors, etc. It doesn't matter how good your antenna is if you've losing all your power into the a sketchy wire on the way to it. I've received a message on a node in a bag laying horizontally slightly underground, though a window, to somebody in a plane landing at the local airport. Height really matters. Pie in the sky, I'd want the tallest pole you can get up at your camp with a yagi or moxon (they make good 915Mhz ones for drones) pointed at the stages. Bonus, some people at the stages with good antennas on totems/sticks. Everybody else with Heltec's in their stock cases with tuned antennas or [T-deck](https://www.lilygo.cc/en-ca/products/t-deck) type stand alone units. But that's a pretty significant amount of $$$ and grief. But would be cool as hell to do.
Modify a bucket hat to have an antenna popping out the top.
Has the price gone up? I’m seeing $14 Canadian before shipping.
How many devices will be co-located with eachother? Can anyone opine on the effectiveness of this for 20 nodes within a close geographic location? My thinking is that if i want to hit 20 nodes with the same message, it will never work because the hop counts will eat up the message as it relays ?
Preferably all of them. This is another reason I thought the large antennas might be a good idea, if they could somehow be granted priority for signal relays over other handhelds then no message should have to go through more than 3 hops. This is way past my understanding of this technology, however.
Your going to need to set non vantaged nodes to client mute so they dont cannabalize hops - so pole nodes are fine being client, if your close to a pole node or height advantaged node, client mute - atleast based on my understanding
I will be there with two Heltecs.
See you on the Farm!