I installed a giant antenna on my mesh radio
I've posted in the past about building mesh radios, a very cheap little radio electronics project which I highly recommend as a kind of dumbass toy (though you could get super serious about it, prepper style, if you desired).
I recently installed a nearly three-foot fiberglass antenna on one of my mesh radios, kind of as a bit. It has certainly increased the number of signals I'm receiving... though, crucially, it has not improved my ability to transmit and be heard.
I won't post a picture of the antenna because I do not want to reveal its location! Ha, ha, ha!
I used a 32-inch Rokland antenna compatible with the frequencies Meshtastic operates on in the US (915 MHz). I mounted it just inside a window in a location on top of a hill. Each week, I'm now receiving data about 150 more nodes than I was before installing this antenna. That's a lot!
The furthest-away node I've hit recently is near Carmel, CA, 260 miles and three "hops" away from my location in Los Angeles. I have no idea how that happened and strongly suspect a node on an airplane was involved. The furthest-away point I've reached south of me is near the border with Mexico.
I am definitely disappointed, however, that I cannot transmit from my current location. I'm worried that my messages are getting blocked by nearby buildings.
Still cool! I'm going to be reinstalling this antenna in a different spot eventually to see if I can get anyone to receive me anywhere. I've decided that I'll eventually just keep reinstalling it at willing friends' houses until someone hears my plaintive cry...
This remains interesting to me as a relatively cheap electronics hobby which actually Does Shit and reacts to me when I experiment with it. I've definitely learned quite a lot more about radios since I started all this, though I'm certainly nowhere near smart enough to solve most of the problems I'm encountering on my own.