Ran my first test. I only have 2 nodes and I’m pretty sure nobody else is active in my area (few nodes in Montreal).
Weather was cloudy, barely above freezing, if that makes a difference.
Residential area with lots of obstructions.
I placed a node at the window of my house on the second floor and another close to the windshield of the car.
I drove around and sent my location to the stationary node with the car stopped at a few intersections.
I started having issues around 0.37-0.4 km.
I expected a better range even in these difficult conditions.
Will test again later with 2 nodes outside when the weather is nicer. That will eliminate loss of signal from the 2 windows but I will lose the elevation (second floor).
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Placing the unit outside your car may also help improve performance.
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Right, your car attenuates the signal with all the metal!
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Right. I’ll wait for some nicer weather and test with less obstructions. Winter doesn’t help.
It’s too bad that I did not have the nodes with me over the holidays in Florida. That would have been fun!
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by the way, when testing is there a way to know if relay nodes are present in range ?
I assume this is all hidden in the firmware…
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Not yet! Check out this thread: Stationary relay node update suggestion
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If your message goes through a node, the app will say ‘Meshed via 1 node’ (or two nodes, etc) below your sent message. But there is no way of otherwise knowing whether a node is present. And even if there ARE nodes present, it would appear that the Gotenna will not use them (or all of them) if it can send your message to your recipient in a lesser number of hops (it only seems to mesh if absolutely necessary).
thanks! that’s good to know.
at least I will know if the message was sent directly or not, which will make the testing more accurate.
Also keep in mind that, if there are multiple nodes in your area, Gotenna won’t tell you WHICH node it used.
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Would location tethering be a better way of testing in extremely cold weather like we are having now ?
How does it work ?
Can I set up my node to transmit my location automatically to another that I leave at home or in my car while I walk around ?
I don’t want to have to take out my phone at -20C to send test messages.
Will the fixed node have a history of my locations so that I can determine where the transmission was lost and where it was getting through ?
Gotennas have no GPS capabilities by themselves. They use the device they are paired with in order to obtain location information.
If you want to do location tethering, you MUST carry your phone (or some other GPS capable mobile device that can run the app). On the other hand, location tethering is automatic. Just set the time interval, and your location will go out without your intervention. You can leave your phone in your pocket.
That’s great! Taking out the phone and removing the gloves is not really fun below -20C.