[prism56]

I tried meshtastic but there is literally nobody around me.

It's like trying to get friends to use signal. I've moved to Meshcore recently and it gets me connected to the rest of the UK. But it took me 2 dedicated repeaters.

I love the meshcore homesassitant plugin, managed to setup some alerts to send out a message on a private channel every 5 minutes if I lose power as an example.

[bramgn]

Nice to hear your experience, as it sounds similar to where i'm currently at. I'm in the south of Norway and there's not much activity on Meshcore yet. I had set up a repeater on a nearby hill, and then one Saturday I started receiving messages in the public channel. At first I thought someone was passing by in town, but I soon realized (and confirmed) that these were messages from Denmark! Some were 200+ KMs away (mostly over sea). I was chatting to people and even able to login to a remote Repeater. I was flabbergasted. Now I'm using the amazing antenna coverage function within the MC app to find best locations of repeaters, which is a fun pastime on itself, especially in a hilly environment. It's a fun and educational exeperience if nothing else! It reminds me very much of packet radio back in the 90s, similar vibe.

[prism56]

Yes! I used that antenna coverage functionality to plan my repeater locations. It worked well.

I just picked up a T1000-E to take on holiday next week, interested if I see anything in the air of in Europe.

[bramgn]

Did you equip these two dedicated repeaters with a solar panel?

[prism56]

One is on my roof with a 12v PSU

The other is a solar panel on a traffic sign about 10km away!