Hey folks, I’m totally new to the whole meshtastic thing, but I checked the coverage in my area and it is basically nonexistent. I’m not primarily interested in using meshtastic myself but I am super into the idea of deploying my own repeater node to expand coverage here for the folks who may want to use it or need to use it.
Does anyone have any recommendations? Ideally it would be solar powered and waterproof so it can be self sufficient out in the elements and just do its thing. Bonus points if it can be used from my phone via bluetooth so I can fiddle around with meshtastic as a user instead of just an extra node in the mesh.
I don’t have access to a 3d printer or soldering tools, so I understand that limits the options
Edited to remove use of “repeater” as this has a defined meaning in meshtastic.
I sort of did the same, but without the weatherproofing and solar powered. I have a Heltec v3 up in the attic which I can interface with both via bluetooth as well as connect to via wifi.
How does being indoors affect the coverage it provides? Its probably not an option in my case sadly as we have like 4ft thick brick walls in our building
These low frequencies have no problems penetrating a roof - I get 30+ km range - but my house is one of the taller ones and the land is almost completely flat around here. You’re right though that 4ft of brick walls would dampen the signal a lot.