I can’t make it that Monday, but Iook forward to hearing how it goes!
@santiago2274, no problem. No intention to exclude you.
I am sure one or both will post some comments after.
When your schedule permits drop a post and let’s see if we can meet up also.
73
Justin ke4pcx
Don’t worry about me! I’m just happy to see more activity on the Raleigh/Durham end. I’m up for joining up one of these days! 
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I sent both of you my contact info via PM.
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Yesterday, Justin (KE4PCX) and I went to William B. Umstead State Park to experiment. Between the 2 of us, we had 10 nodes. Upon meeting, we decided upon a plan; I would station myself at the Visitor Center parking lot, and Justin would go to a point to be determined approximately 1.5 miles away. I would drive with him to the approximate halfway point and deploy relays during my walk back to the Visitor Center.
We remained in excellent contact during the deployment. From my sending my location, Justin realized I had taken a wrong turn and that I was nearly 0.9 miles off course. We were also using GMRS as a backup.
The terrain was heavily wooded with plenty of hills and valleys. The goTennas performed much more robustly in that environment than I had expected. After 7 relays were deployed, Justin and I were able to communicate at a distance of 1.9 miles through the woods and terrain, variously using 3 to 5 skips. We were also able to SHOUT at each other effectively. At this distance, the GMRS backup radios were of no use.
Our final locations before teardown had me at “Location A” and Justin was at “Location B.” Relay locations are also on the map. All my additions to the map are approximate locations, but are sorta accurate.
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Good summary of the test.
Thanks for coming out.
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I was in the area again today and conducted a test using 3 units. While not a complete success the results are interesting.
I paired two units and positioned them at locations A and B in the map below. I then hiked to what I have labeled as the “Central Node” attempting to ping, message, send location data, and SHOUT to the units at locations A & B.
Results
Central Node to Location B 1 mile separation and 46 foot elevation advantage to the central node.
This link was a complete success every ping, message, location and shout was received and where appropriate acknowledged.
Central node to Location A 2 mile seperation and 60 foot elevation advantage at the Central node.
From the perspective of the central node was 100% failure. However on picking up the node I found it had logged two (2) of the pings sent from the Central node.
With some location adjustments to Location A and Central node we may be able to span a 3 mile distance between the two primary parking locations at this state park.
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Awesome experiment! I wish I was available to have participated today.
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I’m hoping to be down by Umstead this coming Saturday afternoon in case anyone else is. I’ll have my Gotenna on my pack.
I’m still trying to find a weekend where something larger can be planned.
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Did you make it out to the park?
I could not make it out we had some family activities planned.
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In general, it went pretty well. Due to the rain, we didn’t disperse as far as I had initially hoped for, but connection was steady and we had a few mesh hops between our team members.
If there is at least one area I’d like to see improved on the app, it’s to be able to assign different colors to individuals so I can track them more visually on the map.
Also, there doesn’t appear to be a way to see message confirmations in a group chat setting. Or, if there is, I was completely unable to find it.
The two other individuals with me who’d never worked with devices liked this, liked how easy it was to use to chat. I did have to repeat that the devices need to be outside of backpacks and pockets. But once that was made clear it worked well.
I’d still like, hopefully when I have some free time again, to plan something bigger at Umstead for the RDU meshers.
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I haven’t used it, but I believe that individual confirmations of received group chat messages is available as one of the features of goTenna Plus.
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Hey all. Finally jumped in on the Gotenna Mesh when the price dropped a bit. At the moment I’m trying to figure my range out here in Carrboro – which seems pretty limited due to low elevation – but I did want to reach out and say hi.
Will probably do some shouts as I drive throughout the area just to test the waters.
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Welcome Aev!
Once things get cooler we’ll hopefully work out a plan for all of us to try a drill. Keep an eye on this thread!
Yeah I’m yet to actually pick up a shout contact on my GoTenna, despite taking it on a couple of roadtrips now. Wandering if I’m turning into the bookworm from the bank in the Twilight Zone…
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I am guessing by the lack of activity the last thing that has been done in the area with these things was April 2019?
It seems that way.
I still want to do something again, but it’s been kind of difficult for me to get free of work.
Still watching.
I work at FFVC on the north end of Davis Drive. I have access to a mast on the roof and could place a GoTenna there. I’m looking for somebody at the Frontier building who would try to put a permanent goTenna there as well and maybe we can go inside-Frontier to Inside FFVC. Does this seem practical?
– Tadd @ FFVC
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I suspect with some modest height, you should be able to relay between these two sites.
Link to the online tool so you can play around with it yourself. its not the most user friendly UI.
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Hi all- I’m in Cary, just got some mesh devices for our family and I’m just starting to explore the app. Hoping to figure out the kinks before I actually need this thing to work!!