Genuinely impressed with #meshtastic thus far. I've got a pair of ThinkNode M2s, and the antennas that come with them are literally bits of printed circuit board, and yet they've managed to get a surprising bit of range (maybe 300m) out of them with suboptimal placement and no special care.

I can see that with a real antenna and an elevated position they'd go quite well.

https://meshtastic.org/

Whatever stroke of luck that was giving my #meshtastic node access to the rest of the mesh is gone. Until yesterday there was an otherwise silent node out there that was forwarding packets to and from mine.

I'm now anxiously awaiting my new antenna to arrive, because it feels wrong for my tiny radio child to be cut off from its friends.

Baby's first solar powered LoRa #meshtastic node.

Still waiting on a better antenna.

…and the battery that comes with the M2 board is *almost* enough to power it through the night. It would probably be fine in summer.

Luckily batteries are pretty inexpensive as well.

@psa @neoluddite @pjf a friend collects the disposable vapes to harvest batteries. Amazing how many of them have charging circuits, but no exposed power socket.

Actually, did, or least not for much longer. They were banned in NZ last month.