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Topic starter
31/10/2025 4:17 pm
From Bill KØDZ:
Yesterday Chip, Steve, Henry, and I placed a Meshtastic node on the church that will operate 24/7, providing connectivity for club and MCARES activities, as well as relaying traffic across the valley.
Steve has Meshtastic running 24/7 in Clifton, and I have it running in Fruita.
We plan to get the Meshtastic node at Black Ridge configured as a router (Meshtastic repeater) in the next few days. Previous tests show the coverage area to be Whitewater to Fruita, and possibly much larger.
If you're curious about Meshtastic but aren't ready to buy hardware yet, that's okay! The Meshtastic App for Iphone and Android is free, and it allows you to connect to anyone's hardware.
We will be planning a Meshtastic "clinic" soon and encourage you to come and connect to our existing hardware so that you can experience Meshtastic for yourself.
If you are attending Hamcon, look for the APRS vs Meshtastic talk. We may all learn something new!
Special thanks to Steve KE0BPD for building the W0RRZ-FCC node for the club site!
Topic starter
31/10/2025 4:19 pm
From Bill KØDZ:
Bill W0BX, Steve KE0BPD, and I went to the WCARC Black Ridge Repeater Site and set up the W0RRZ-BKR Meshtastic Node in the Router role. The node is configured in the Router role, which is a type of Meshtastic repeater.
Bill W0BX brought his spectrum analyzer to the repeater site and looked at the rf environment of the 900Mhz ham band through the small 900Mhz bandpass filter and the node antenna that we are using. We are operating on 920.0625 mhz for now.
Initial tests showed good coverage from Fruita to Grand Junction to Clifton. Range is likely considerable larger (If you can key up the WCARC Club repeater on 149.940 from your location, then you can likely reach the Meshtastic Mesh. We are actively testing antennas and configurations to improve coverage.
There are now 12 Meshtastic Nodes on this fledgling Meshtastic Mesh. All nodes are running unencrypted, and with Ham callsigns. Please contact me and I can send you a link to automagically configure your node to work over this mesh.
A word about Meshtastic Node Names:
You can only connect via bluetooth to a single Meshtastic node, even though the nodes themselves can route traffic amongst themselves. As you acquire Meshtastic hardware, please consider using descriptive Node names that will help others to know which device to message you on. For example:
K0DZ Actual <-- you can send a direct message to this node and I will see it.
K0DZ Mobile (not monitored) <-- Don't message me here! This node will send traffic to K0DZ Actual, but the message has to be addressed to K0DZ-Actual in order for that to happen.
K0DZ Qth (not monitored) <-- Don't message me here either! This node just forwards traffic to K0DZ Actual, as long as the traffic is addressed to K0DZ-Actual.
W0RRZ-BKR <-- If you address a direct message to this node, no one will ever see it! This node just forwards traffic to other nodes, as long as the traffic is addressed to those other nodes.
Hopefully my node names are very descriptive to other users of the mesh. A node named K0DZ-Rak4631 might be descriptive to me, but meaningless to everybody else. One thing you can do to reduce confusion is to put your test nodes on another "Channel" until you're ready to rename them and put them on the main mesh.
Also, please consider using precise positioning on this mesh. We are doing lots of testing and it is helpful to gain awareness of poor coverage areas as we build out coverage.
You can help free up the frequency by selecting only Altitude_MSL rather than reporting all the many other GPS details, such as number of satellites, etc. More details means that your node will transmit longer each time it sends info, decreasing battery life and taking up more space on the frequency than necessary.
