Appealing to everyone in the DC, VA, and MD metro area to set up stationary relays. I checked the mesh community map, and while there are a number of users, I see few relays. It would be strategic to place them within the city around surrounding area. In a perfect world, it would be nice to relay a message from the city to the surrounding suburbs. I hope more people buy into the technology and one day this can be realized. I work in the city and have yet to be able to successfully communicate with another user right outside of the city in VA (5 miles LOS).
Despite the number of users, I have numerous times sent out a “shout” and have yet to receive any reply.
I’ve set up my own relay in VA but hoping others do soon as well.
As an aside, is there any way to tell if your unpaired relay is actually working and people are using it?
I’m still waiting on another one to show up so I can set up another relay at work, but I don’t know how well that will work with a roof full of avionics antenna.
Agreed! I’ve set up a relay in Cleveland Park which could be useful for people trying to reach some of the suburbs northwest of DC, but unfortunately don’t have access to the roof or any other high location.
Just ordered a 4 pack - one for myself and one for my girlfriend. Aiming to add two relay nodes one in Takoma and one in Bethesda with the extra two units!
One day I wanna have the MOAN set up @gua742 has done but I’m gonna have to wait till they figure out the best/optimal procedure and hardware to go with. Hardware tinkering isn’t really my area.
Yeah I’m a bit nervous about breaking one of these things open… Our apartment has great solar exposure so I just picked up a cheap panel and usb power stick off Amazon.
Update/edit: not breaking any distance records (yet) but the node I set up in our apartment seems to do a pretty good job covering most of the area immediately around the Takoma metro station and for a couple of blocks each way at least. Hopefully I’ll get some more/better testing done soon!
I have one plugged in all the time over in Arlington, Lyon Village, second floor. But I’m not getting much range - maybe a few blocks at best. Never heard back on any shouts, either.
Guess we need to completely saturate the area for it to work well. Or more power. I wonder how far the 5W pro version would fare
Well, shouts don’t get relayed so the only people who would pick it up is other users in your immediate area. But ultimately, yeah lets get the whole DMV saturated that would be awesome!
I’ve typically got a mesh in Downtown Silver Spring, but the range isn’t the greatest. My building is pure concrete and I get less than half a mile for a relay point. Short of getting one on the roof, I see no easy solution in the DMV
@danielagotenna not sure where to ask this question - but I was wondering if you guys had any sort of #'s on how many devices have been added to the map?
We don’t — we might add such a feature when the map isn’t so opt-in (given it’s not even integrated into the app yet) … as it doesn’t represent even half of the people who’ve bought units yet! It’s well in the thousands on the map but well into tens of thousands IRL
I’m on the 6th floor of my building but unfortunately my apartment faces other buildings. This leads to a massively decreased range with the construction of my building. Hopefully your sister’s building has better luck, though I do keep one of my 3 units in my window unless I need it.
I just purchased 4 units and am right outside downtown Silver Spring, near Sligo and Wayne. One will become a attic mount 3 stories up in decently high elevation. My house is around 350 feet above see level, plus the 33 feet up to the attic. This will become a permanent relay site with battery backup. Im hoping this will help to saturate the area more and help the silver spring and surrounding areas. My end goal will be to build a external antenna that I can mount on the unused antenna mast off my chimney which will add an additional 20ish feet from the attic.
My second will be a vehicle/solar relay that will be parked on the roof of a parking garage in downtown silver spring durning work hours as well.
and put it on the map ^^
