I am new to the community and do not want to adversely affect any existing users in my area. I live on a mountain ridge with clear sight lines over a valley that houses a large town and am looking into installing a repeater on top of my house.
I do not have a location on the top of the mountain (which would give me sight lines on both sides of the ridge). I live in a remote area and while looking on a map of meshtastic devices can see 3 active nodes spread out in the valley I overlook, with no nodes on the other side of the mountain for 50+ miles.
Should I just stick with a client node? Should I find a more advantageous location to place a repeater? Is it useless because there is so little meshtastic activity in my area?
That is all excellent advice. My only addition is to keep in mind that every new node extends the mesh. And every extension makes it more valuable for other to join. A little over a year ago I bought three nodes (for me, my wife, and a friend). At the time, we could only see our own nodes. Then we put up a repeater on a relatively high point in our neighborhood. Suddenly we could see several dozen nodes. Now we can see at least four other repeaters and around 200 nodes
You aren’t likely to see that kind of grown in a rural area, but you are likely to see some. I think of it as similar to the early days of cell phones. You used to only get service in very limited areas, and never in the country. That has gradually changed to the point where coverage is more likely than not, even in remote areas. It got that way one tower at a time. The mesh is developing in the same way. And every repeater put up is a public service.