More Meshtastic (edited)
The 868MHz node has gained a collinear and both nodes are now in the loft powered over a long USB extension that was already routed up there. I was surprised to see numerous peer messages appearing in the web app and after some fiddling these decoded into names etc. and the web app plotted them on the UK map. At present there are 50 nodes, some as far south as Sheffield, one in and two to the east of York, one in Knaresborough, and a cluster nearby and out to the west as far as Hebden Bridge. Some of these are named after callsigns but of course this is not an amateur radio thing so anything goes. The web app recorded a bunch of messages too between people. Sadly, no-one can hear my node so there is work to do yet, not least putting the antenna outside. I have another 868MHz device on order so I can check that the node in the loft is actually transmitting and if so, do some basic range tests.
Another day... I ordered another T3S3 unit which arrived this morning, less than a day since I ordered it! Anyway, on powering it up it immediately saw nodes and messages. It appears that the node in the loft was just passing messages to it, which is after all what these things do. So I have removed the loft node, brought the collinear down and connected to this new node leaving the other powered off. After resetting the Node database it can see nodes but all with 'bad' signals (I did not enable the receive boost). I am using Bluetooth to connect to this, not wifi, so it is a virgin setup. At least this proves as far as I can that it is just this node receiving these others. Perhaps the few local nodes will pipe up later on and I'll see something other than bad signal strengths. The antenna, with the node directly connected is currently hanging in the window so putting it outside is the next step.
Actually the next step is to re-flash the now-disconnected node and start from scratch because I am convinced I messed something up while fiddling! Then I can use that one for a range test.