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I previously wrote a post about Discovering Long Range Radio Communications LORA" detailing my interest in establishing a local mesh network. At the time I had a choice of using either Meshtastic or Reticulum. Since these early days I have moved from Reticulum network stack to using relatively new mesh software called Meshcore. But why did I move to Meshcore?
The repeater on the roof terrace
Reticulum is the most advanced of all these mesh networks. It incorporates most forms of networking including LoRa, Internet, TCP, UDP or private IP networks. It is really advanced and growing quickly. But it is very technical and I think I wanted to try something simpler to install and set up. After all, if I was to successfully build a local mesh at some poiunt I would have to gain the interest of folks outside of my immediate family.
That left me the choice of Meshtastic or the recently developed Meshcore. Here is a good report of the pros and cons of each ... Meshtastic vs Meshcore: Comparing Two Leading LoRa Mesh Network Solutions. Needless to say, I went for the Meshcore option.
Installation #
The installation of software was done from the Meshcore Web Flashing page which worked well and I found easy and intuitive. I installed Meshcore on the following devices that I had built up on Reticulum initially.
2 x Lilygo LoRa V2.1 (companion USB - attached to mine and Kierstens laptops via USB) 1 x Heltec Mesh Node T114 V2.0 (repeater on roof) 2 x SenseCap T1000-E trackers (companion Bluetooth paired to an old mobiles) 1 x Lilygo T-Beam SX1262 (spare, for now) 2 x LILYGO® T-Deck Plus ESP32-S3 (standalone device)
T-Deck Plus #
This is an interesting device as it's completely standalone. No need for companion apps on mobile phone or separate batteries etc. I bought the antenna-less version which was a mistake so I took the thing to bits and attached my own antenna.
I'ts a bit hit and miss with communication distances so maybe I have not quite got things attached correctly. Ongoing work needed, but this has to be the future way for Lora mesh networks ie standalone devices.
The T-Deck plus in action
The T-Deck plus with the antenna attached
Mesh Range Tests #
I ran some initial tests sending and receiving messages from our dog walk. For a message to succeed we didn't need to have full "line of sight" but there was a point where the messages failed when blocked by sufficient mountainside, for instance.
Time for some line of sight tests. I successfully connected from 3km away from the repeater on my fooftop terrace. Then we headed west off into the dirt tracks and 4x4 tracks of the Guajares hills opposite and managed to connect from nearly 12km away! So far so good.
Then a stroke of good luck. My spanish friend, Pepe, bought some land on a hillside at 1200 meters on a ridge live plateau. He is an expert at internet and satellite communications. He installed a tower to enable internet communications with his town house 5000 vertical below.
Plan is to install a Heltec Mesh Node T114 V2.0 as a repeater on his tower. That way the mesh line of site eastwards will extend to Orgiva, Torvizcon and who knows where. A big extending of the available mesh. When that is done and tested then the mesh should be able to be open to all to join. Exciting times.
Sensecap T1000-E Tracker #
A credit card sized radio/gps unit that acts as a tracker and can be paired to a phone to send/receive messages. Works really well. We sometimes attach to our dog Rita so we know where she is when she goes walkabout!
The Sensecap T1000-E tracker paired to Android meshcore app
The Sensecap T1000-E reporting the position of my dog, Rita
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