Yeah, it seems a bit tricky around this area where we live in East Liberty too.
I wonder what kind of capacity would be sustainable with these devices. Say, if everyone had one, how many people could have one before it would grind to a halt from overload? I wonder if GoTenna puts out data they may have collected about this somewhere?
In my experience (because Iāve successfully glitched the app into a feedback loop, but donāt ask how), messages will queue up in the goTenna devices until the channel is clear. They appear to be smart enough to wait for a confirmation to go back before attempting to send another message. Also, from what Iāve heard on here about the new firmware, some routing intelligence and tuning appears to be happening that can reduce the number of hops necessary for an ongoing conversation between two devices.
So, in all likeliness, any potential āoverloadā of the network will likely result in a simple delay of your message being sent. I would need to personally test this to be certain, though.
That makes sense. I didnāt realize that about it trying to send over and over again if the channel is not clear. That is a good feature indeed. The platform is very useful and its a great idea. There are a lot of potential uses in cities beyond just emergency communications as well.
We have 4 devices and would like to test the range more, for example with a relay at our apartment to see how far we can get in either direction from it. Iāll update the data on the map for the range once we confirm it better.
How many hops have you managed so far here in Pittsburgh without setting up your own relays? We havent been able to get any messages to relay yet other than with our own relay.
Without my own relay, none. Iāve yet to make any communication. The most Iāve accomplished is 3 hops, all with my own equipment.
@MetaMeshWC, is your goTenna still live? Iāve tried pinging you when Iāve been in town, but no luck.
Checked on the relay and it was off. Being out of town last week, I donāt know if the weather couldāve caused it, though I heard it rained a lot. Powered it back up and decided to do the firmware update while I had it apart. Itās a AA12341234 unit (black strap), but updated just fine from my iPhone SE running latest code. After the update, it still had 96% charge.
There are other un-marked relays near near Mellon Park / Shady Side. And we are working on moving one of my relay nodes on the CMU campus up to a considerably higher elevation in the amateur radio shack on campus which should improve range around the campus from where the node is at now. With couple more well placed nodes in the area on top of what is already available 6 hops should provide some solid range passing through Oakland.
Iāll be in town tonight on an eBike tour from 7-10 if anyone wants to shout out.
@MetaMeshWC, I think relay 001 is down.
De-lurking here, Iāve had a pair of goTennas for a few months, and I just added two more to my collection so I can fully dedicate one to be an always-on relay in my place on the southern edge of Squirrel Hill. Itās currently solar powered, though Iām not sure if thatāll hold up if I can get it up a little higher. Fun experimenting with ways to get it to work, I just wish it were easier to measure coverage.
As an aside, the goTennas worked ok keeping friends in contact while doing various short hikes in Iceland - nice to be able to avoid having everyone have to have roaming plans (plus, the cell networks didnāt cover many interesting places to hike there, unsurprisingly), but, you know, not like there was a huge mesh of hikers making it work around corners and over hilltops, either.
Since there donāt seem to be too many of us yet, and since thereās no way other than āEmergency Chatā to check if the multi-hop meshing is working to communicate over any arbitrary distances around town, Iām wondering if anyone wants to set up an off-forum list of GIDs of folks who are willing to be Pingāed or Chatted to test range?
You can post GIDs on the map https://imeshyou.gotenna.com/ I have my stationary relays connected to older Android devices. Iāve put their GIDs on the map so people can test their gotennaās with. There is no guarantee Iāll see the messages but at least people can see if they successfully delivered a message to those nodes or not.
As for solar power I have mine connected to a Wasserstein panel to a RavPower 20100mAh battery pack that has been powering a gotenna now since August 6th. That is my East facing node. The West facing node has needed to have its battery pack replaced every 6 days. I have a suspicion the tree across the street from my West node is blocking a significant amount of sunlight towards the latter part of the day. East has a much less restricted view of the horizon.
I was planning to leave my relay in relay mode to give the solar a better chance to keep up, though the idea of linking it to an old phone so that it can be an outgoing SMS pathway is also tempting.
My setup so far is to use a couple of goalzero panels I have that I donāt normally take with me, wired through a cheap charge-through battery I can swap if need be. But Iāve been considering running a USB-over-cat5 setup to pull power from a larger 150w setup I have. Part of the reason I want to start checking connectivity - if itās not worth it to put it up high enough to need the long-distance power, Iāll skip it. The built-in batteries make such experiments a lot easier.
Actually, depending on how high you set the GTM, it can do both. The improved performance on Bluetooth can easily cover the standard 10m distance that was often quoted for, but seldom achieved reliably with older versions of BT, perhaps a bit more. And even when not in Relay mode, the GTM will still relay; what Relay does is turn off Bluetooth to save power when itās being used solely as a relay. If you supply it with power via Cat 5, thereās no need to worry about power, leave Bluetooth on, and then you may have to treat the linked phone/device as a fixed point depending on your view of the GTM up on the tower, but you might be able to make it work depending on where everything is.
Another power alternative is to use an extra long USB cable. Our home relay is the only one in UMESH that is not solar powered. Instead, a USB cable leads into the attic through a gable peak vent and plugs into a conveniently placed wallwart. The GTM is in a small faux-Pelican case adapted to take the cable leading into it. If emergency power is needed, I can just plug the USB cable into one of the battery packs I keep charged. A GTM can run 5 to 7 days on some of my larger ones (8,000 mAh).
So, Iāve been away from Mesh lately, but Iām coming back around.
Not sure if folks are still active in Pittsburgh (though more mobile nodes are appearing on the map), but Iāll be in town tonight at the car show. If anyoneās near the convention center after 5 PM, shout out.
@MetaMeshWC, are you guys still using goTennas?
Iāve been playing around with Ubiquitiās AirLink software (https://link.ui.com) and have found a few locations that would enable a link between my work and my house (not to mention get me more than halfway to downtown). One of them is a tree near the cell towers at the Boyce Community Gardens (40.316338,-80.101542 with a height of 40 feet).
I still need to do an actual test with the goTennas to verify a link as it is just over 20 km (12.5 miles) and real close to the ground at a few points between the two. Should this work, what would be the best way to approach the township and try to get permission to place a node there?
The township will have to be persuaded itās in what they can believe is the public interest. The need for emergency communications is a pretty good bet to be the strongest argument here. You can certainly get them a relay well-situated for their needs, depending on terrain (remembering this is hilly Pittsburgh).
After that come liability concerns. How do you plan to get that relay up in the air and onto the tree? Having a solid, safe plan for that is the first thing youāll need.
Townships usually have an elected board, It would be good to speak with anyone you know about the benefits of mesh who might be on it
One way to entice them would be to sponsor a gift of a 4-pack of GTMs so that they can try them out and have some basic capability sooner, rather than later
All good advice, thanks.
As for installation in the tree, Iād most likely use a drone. My home node is too heavy for my drone to lift it, but it could lift a rope up and over the branch, then I pull the node up with the rope. I also know some people with bucket trucks that might do the trick.
First step is getting my home node back up and running so I can range test this weekend.
The home node has returned to the air. Got it hung in the tree at 14 feet AGL on top of the hill. Now to do some range testing either tomorrow or Tuesday.
After messing around on Ubiquitiās Airlink site, it appears that I may be able to achieve a link between home and a piece of property Iāve been thinking about buying with a 60 foot tower at home, and then use the property to relay the rest of the way to work. This would work best, since then Iām not relying on someone elseās permission to make these things work for me. But all of this after doing some testing, which I feel confident about. Firmware 1.1.8 was able to talk directly over 3/4 of a mile through a hill earlier today, making relay testing a challenge since they were able to go direct).
Range testing wasnāt all that great. I got a message through in a new spot close to home, but further tests that shouldāve worked didnāt, so some extra height is needed.