After a lot of fiddling about writing code to look at mesh traffic I am on other projects (like, sorting the house out!)… so here is my current state of play…
I have an 868MHz node in the loft directly connected to a collinear which is hanging off the rafters. This is powered by USB from one of the Pi systems in the shack. It is set to work over wifi, not BLE as it’s just too far away. Its position coordinates are fixed. But I do not need to access it directly, see below. The useful thing here is I have installed the Python CLI on that Pi and can access the node’s data stream directly.
There is one 868MHz node in the shack with the supplied stubby little antenna. There is no way this can see any other nodes in the local area (I’ve tried) but can access the node in the loft. So this one has hops set to 4 as it uses one just to get upstairs. This node is set to read position data from the iPhone and can thus go mobile. Well, ok, it could go mobile anyway but at least this way it says where it is etc. But it will probably never go mobile. With this powered over USB from the Mac Mini I can also access the data stream via the CLI. One issue with this setup is that the shack node reports all nodes seen as having an excellent signal strength as it only sees data from the loft node. In reality only a couple of local nodes have anything approaching a ‘good’ signal strength.
Both 868MHz nodes are Lily T3S3 units with no GPS.
And there is a 433MHz node, this time a T-Beam with GPS on board, directly connected to a 2m/70cm collinear which is hanging from the window blinds in the shack with some bungee cord. This is of course temporary. I have yet to see any other nodes on 433MHz and I suspect I will quietly give up with that.
868MHz-wise there is a lot of local activity. Currently the loft node sees 180 other nodes, although not all will be active. They do tend to stick and clearing the node database then starts afresh, slowly building up a list as data is seen.
And the use? So far, mainly people asking if they can be heard. There are some private channels, no idea what as they are encrypted, pus there are at least two very well sited nodes acting as routers for the area and beyond. One of those is extremely well made.