New Meshcore Antenna, Switching to SF7 in Omaha NE!!

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:29]Hey. Hey. Hey.

[00:02:00]All righty. Well, whenever I sent out my little test, I only got like three actual responses. You can see my test sent out right there. I did get a response from Biscuit. And then I kept sending my messages cuz I can check on the analyzer over there. uh which by the way is brand new, the little sound analyzer, which is freaking badass. I can see, you know, whenever my messages go out, but they just don't get routed back to me. So, I'll give you a little update on how the one watt repeater on Mesh Core is doing. Actually, it's been doing really really good for the past 5 to 6 weeks and then the last 2 weeks or so, it's kind of just kind of just gone downhill. And my only conclusion to that is there's actually two. First one is here in Omaha and the surrounding areas were all on spread factor 9. Okay, that's what they set up whenever they first started messing with it and that seemed to work really good in this area. However, since it's kind of like exploded, you know, many new people that do show up on the mesh core might load just the defaults and they might not know that everybody around here is on spread factor 9. So, the default spread factor is actually seven.

[00:03:25]So, what everybody's been talking about around here is just going back to the default SF7. So, just in case new people do show up, they can be on the existing network. All right, so that is one reason why I might not be getting too many responses. Whenever I was on SF9 about 2 weeks ago, also the messages were just not coming back. It slowly started going away. And then I finally realized is yeah, I think the main problem is the trees all have leaves and I'm basically blocked once again. Honestly, I think I'm just freaking blocked.

[00:04:04]Everybody around here is switching over to SF7 and I think, you know, kind of like by like June 13th or somewhere somewhere around there is when most people are going to switch over. I think it's not like you have to switch over, but I think most people are going to be switching over to spread factor 7. So, right now, currently, mine is on spread factor 7. So, not everybody in Omaha and Lincoln and surrounding areas is on spread factor 7. Some of them are still on spread factor 9. So, that might be part of the reason why I'm not getting responses back because there's not as many repeaters, you know, sending them back in my direction. But I think most of the problem is from all the trees. I I'm pretty sure that's got to be it. So, I had a Amazon gift card burning a hole in my pocket and we are going to upgrade my repeater that's on the roof right now cuz I really don't want to put it up in the tree if I don't have to. So, I bought it's supposed to be a 10 dBi antenna. I think it was advertised as 15, but if you look through all of the reviews down below, one guy said you might get 15 dBi if you're using like some crazy megahertz that we're not using anyway, but he did all his tests on the 915 MHz and he was reporting 10 dBi. So, I'm going to try it out and see what we got.

[00:05:36]It literally just came in.

[00:05:42]Oh, it's actually in here.

[00:05:46]Why are you stuck? I'm going to break it before I get it out. What's going on here?

[00:05:53]Get out of the box. Never had so much trouble getting into a box.

[00:06:00]Having te technical difficulties here.

[00:06:02]Of course, the box is breaking off in little tiny pieces, too. Talk about a awkward unboxing. Oh my gosh.

[00:06:10]Just give me the freaking Okay, finally got it. It's this big. It's a fiberglass antenna, 824 to 960 MHz. And it's got an N connector on it. Made in China. It did come with a like a 16 ft cable. Got N on one side and then SMA on the other, but everybody in the reviews said that this cable is junk and I probably ruined it trying to get it out. Is that it?

[00:06:38]Oh, what was that? It's had a little cover, I'm guessing, on the SMA connector. And I also bought a like a little jumper, 1 ft jumper that I can come out of my repeater and then into this big ass antenna. Now, with this antenna, I don't have anything to like actually test it, you know, but there is a little radios in the park here in Omaha this weekend, so I might bring this with me and maybe somebody there can test it for me and see what it see what it actually does. I have no idea.

[00:07:09]But the only thing I can do is hook it up to the repeater on the roof and try it out. And that's what we're going to do today. And just for reference on this, this antenna was 60 60 bucks.

[00:07:21]Okay. And then the little one ft pigtail adapter right here with N on both sides.

[00:07:28]I think that was like $949.

[00:07:32]The only thing I don't know about this is if it is like UV resistant or anything like that. I don't know. I did see in the reviews down below is some other people were using these exact same wires outside. So, I don't know. I'm just going to use it and see what happens. Okay. So, anyway, uh if you want me if you want to see this thing up close, I'll show you. Okay. I was not kidding. This box literally came apart in a million pieces for me trying to take it apart. Same with the bag.

[00:08:00]Anyway, it came with a 16 and 1/2 ft really crappy cable. According to the reviews, it has N on one side and then on the other side, it has your SMA or whatever it is right there. It also came with this little adapter right here if you need it. Here is the 10 dBi fiberglass antenna that is around 35 or so in long. It looks really, really nice.

[00:08:28]So anyway, on this side we have an N connector and then we have the little tiny base so you can mount this to a pole with the Ubolts right here. And then the sticker, I believe the company was called Signal Plus. So there you go.

[00:08:45]fiberglass antenna frequency is 824 to 960 MHz connector and female made in China, but it did have a QC pass. Nice.

[00:08:58]If we want to measure this for real, at least the fiberglass tip to the bottom of the threads down here, 36 and 1/4 in. All right. So, that's what we're going to do is install this bad boy on the one watt repeater that is on the roof. But, I am going to go grab it real quick cuz I need to update the firmware to the latest version. I think we're at like 1.15 right now. And I haven't tried the overtheair updates yet. So, that's the only reason I'm going to go grab it real quick. I don't know what the deal is, but every time I come out here to put this up or take it down, it's always super windy.

[00:09:42]Anyway, boom. There we go. So, what we need to do now is disconnect the battery solar panels so we can update the firmware.

[00:09:55]So, we'll do that real quick. And if you guys haven't seen this, if this is their first video watching of the Mesh Core stuff. So, there's an Alpha 915 antenna on the top. Just a little cheap plastic enclosure from Amazon. This solar panel was actually from a PTZ camera that I have out in the tree. It got knocked down whenever we had a really big storm and then the wire pulled out of it.

[00:10:18]That's why I used it onto here. And then on the inside, we have the rack wireless one watt booster kit inside of there.

[00:10:26]and three 18650s. That's pretty much it.

[00:10:30]Okay, so I just got to disconnect the solar panel and the battery and now we can go update it.

[00:10:40]So, one thing about updating it, if you're not aware, there was a split in the mesh core mesh core. We're no longer using the mesh core.uk or whatever it was before. We are now using Meshcore IO. So update your favorites. All right, just logged in here real quick. I'm going to make sure the firmware is good to go. So 1.15.

[00:11:04]Nice. Okay, now that everything is good, I went ahead and disconnected the battery and solar panel again. So we can remove the antenna, which we are going to do right now.

[00:11:17]Hopefully we can get that off of there.

[00:11:20]I had some string tie on there. just back this thing right off of here. Could you imagine putting this directly? That would be insane. I wouldn't do it because you would destroy your box, but it would be insane. So, all we're going to do obviously again is mount this on the pole. And then we're going to use the little tiny pigtail to go from here to the new antenna. And then we'll mount this on the top of that pole that I had this mounted on. This is going to go pretty quick and easy.

[00:11:56]That on there.

[00:11:58]Wrap this as best as we can.

[00:12:07]Trying to get all the way down to the basically the washer.

[00:12:14]I'm sure somebody will tell me I'm doing it wrong. So, go ahead.

[00:12:20]This here. I can do it. Okay. Have you guys ever heard of string tie? I bought a 1 ft section thinking that I was going to do like a small coil like that, but I think a coil is probably not a good idea, right? You probably want this to be straight. I don't really know much, you know, about antennas or anything like that. You know, what messes them up, what makes them better. So, if you guys know, make sure you put that down in the comment section. and you know, just basically let me know. But I'm going to mount it up there so it's kind of straight if I can. I might have to loosen these real quick and just slightly move it out of the way because I can kind of see in between this little gap right there. So, I'm going to start my tape up a little bit higher so I can cover those little holes.

[00:13:16]Boom. There's my tape job on the repeater. And then I went around to the other side so I could wrap the antenna as well. And I removed that plate just like I said cuz there was some smaller I don't know if there were actually holes or not, but there was some little areas that I could see up in. So I just went ahead and taped a little bit higher as well. And now I just need to slide this back in place. All right. There's one more thing I'm going to do real quick and that is string tie over my tape.

[00:13:46]It's basically using string kind of like instead of zip ties. It's something that we would do in the Air Force whenever we would bundle a bunch of wires together.

[00:13:55]Instead of using zip ties, we would use string tie. And all that is is just waxcoated string. So that's what I'm going to do on mine over the taped areas just so the tape doesn't ever want to fall off. I know this tape really only sticks to itself, but I have seen this stuff come off, so I'm going to string tie it again. All right, so this is my wax coated string. Basically, you're going to kind of fold it in half just like this. All right, so we're going to stick our loop underneath just like that. And then we're going to basically grab one of those like that.

[00:14:33]And then the one that we did not grab, we're going to bring that through the other one that we did. If that makes sense.

[00:14:42]Okay. So, we have this funny looking set of string right here. And what this does is if you're basically tying a bunch of things together, kind of like you would with zip tie, you can cinch it down. And since this is wax string, it'll you can let go of it and it will hold all of your wires together. Now, I didn't pull that really really tight because I'm going to straighten mine out cuz I wasn't quite ready yet. Now, from here, you just cinch it down. And then like that, you could technically leave it, but we usually throw in a couple of knots at the end just to make sure it never comes undone again.

[00:15:23]And that's how you string tie wires together or basically whatever you want together. I do it on both ends basically. All right, I'll show you one more time. And I have my piece of string in half. Okay, so we're going to stick that loop underneath.

[00:15:39]And then our two pieces over here, we're going to put one through that loop just like that. And then the other one, we're going to put it through that loop that we just made. And we'll just pull that right through there. I'm actually going to bring mine back a little further.

[00:15:57]From here, you just you just cinch it down basically.

[00:16:01]Just like that. And then you just put in like a couple of knots at the very end.

[00:16:07]And there you go. That's how you do string tie instead of using zip ties. Of course, you snip off the ends when you're done. Boom. And done. And that's what we used to do in the Air Force is string tie versus zip ties. And I guess I'll give Frank a shout out because he is the one that taught me how to do that. So, thanks Frank. Okay. Uh, that's all we really need to do right now. Next thing we can do is take this outside and mount it up. Hopefully, you don't fall over. Okay. It's probably not ideal to do this. Let it hang like that.

[00:16:45]Oh, I need a deeper socket.

[00:16:49]At least get this snug down so it doesn't pull on that.

[00:17:02]Boom. There we go. Three-foot antenna on this little pole. Hope this works. So, anyway, the repeater that I would normally click to is over in that direction. It's called PT01.

[00:17:14]And I can still connect to it. It's just not sending the messages back to me. And then there's another one over this way, which I think is called NMA. And then my other buddy John, he's a few miles north this way. He actually just put up an antenna similar to this. I do connect to him. Actually, I connect to all three of these just fine, sending the messages out. They're just not coming back to me.

[00:17:35]So, if this will solve my problem so I don't have to put the repeater up in that tree again, that would be fan freakingtastic. I do still have the paracord connected over there just in case, but I just really don't want to put it up there because all the storms we get, I mean, these trees are, you know, swinging and flopping around all over the place. And another thing, I'm actually uh probably going to start cutting these things down cuz for one, the one that I had, the tree peter in is like half dead and it's already broken down a few times through a storm a couple years ago. It fell half that way in the street and then the other half fell out into that street that way and took out the telephone pole that's right there. So, that one actually needs to go. And then I'm probably going to cut down these other ones because I want to move all of my solar panels to the ground right over there. I just don't get enough sun because of all of my trees. So anyway, um if I do keep a tree, it'll be one of these trees over here. And then if I have to, I'll I'll put it up there, but that'll be desperate measures or desperate times.

[00:18:38]I'm hoping this will really do it. So there we go. 3-foot antenna on a one watt rack booster.

[00:18:46]Nice. All right. I logged into the repeater and sent out an advert. I'm also going to do the same here real quick. Boom. Advert sent. I'm going to go to the the test channel. Boom.

[00:19:01]There's no messages. I'm going to send the first one. Uh this is actually out of the the rack right here, the rack whiz block. I actually put a little screen on there today. We are going to send out our first test message. Boom.

[00:19:17]We heard one and we repeat which is my repeater and hopefully we get an acknowledgement sent back. Fingers crossed. Okay, so I've only seen the test sent out so there's no acknowledgement yet. That doesn't really mean anything. It might just mean the the test bot isn't working. I'm going to go to the public channel. Test for YouTube with new antenna.

[00:19:45]Send. So it heard and repeat. Maybe nobody's available at the moment if it doesn't reply quickly. Somebody, anybody. CQ CQ. I don't know. So I'm going to send one from my my other one over here. Hello testy. Okay, it's been about one whole minute and nobody's responded yet except for me to myself.

[00:20:09]That antenna so far is a bust. All right. So, I did get two replies from Biscuit. What long ears you have? And that was from this one right here. And then I sent another message from my other companion. And he says, "Who is getting all testy?" That's the analyzer right there. And then if we look at my phone right here, I'm not I don't have any of those replies.

[00:20:34]So, I am still not receiving messages.

[00:20:38]And I'm not sure why. It could again be because we're switching over to spread factor 7 and there's not enough uh repeaters in my little area right around me where the messages can come back. So actually I wonder if I switch it over to SF9. I switched the repeater back over to SF9 and then same thing for this companion right here. So now we're going to try the test again and see what happens.

[00:21:09]Okay, so we're hitting one out there.

[00:21:11]That's the North Omaha one.

[00:21:15]I wonder if there's still a bot on SF9.

[00:21:18]I have no idea. That's okay. I'm going to go over to the main public channel.

[00:21:25]Oh, okay. I did get a response and that was from the Hailbot over here.

[00:21:31]Okay, cool. So, that was working. I love watching this thing. Okay. Um, test for YouTube on SF9.

[00:21:42]It's cool because you can see exactly where it goes.

[00:21:46]If it goes there, it goes.

[00:21:53]So, we'll see if we get a reply on this one. So, Mule, he replied with a wave.

[00:21:58]Thank you, mule.

[00:21:59]But I'm just not I'm not getting anything here.

[00:22:04]I don't understand what's going on. So, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm Maybe I do have to get it back up in the tree because height is might. All right.

[00:22:15]Fast forward a couple of days and this past Saturday, I went to the third radios in the park for the Omaha, Lincoln surrounding areas, and I hung out with all the people there, learned how to make antennas, and those are a lot easier than you would think. You just need something to test them, which I don't have. Uh, anyway, I took down this big ass antenna so I could bring this there and have somebody test it out, which they did. And it seems to be like a pretty decent antenna. So, I will most likely reinstall this in like another day or two. I did want to mention that last night we had some really bad storms and I'm not actually able to get out like anywhere now. I don't know if repeaters are down or what's going on, but I can send a message and it really just goes to my repeater and it doesn't go anywhere else. So, what I have decided is yolo risk it for the biscuit. And I'm going to reenable the tree once more. I guess that's why I'm not going to technically reinstall this quite yet because this will make it I don't know it probably definitely break something up there. But I feel with the smaller alpha 915 antenna up in the tree peter, it might have a better chance of surviving through the storms. So there it was.

[00:23:47]Back to the tree, it looks like. And if this doesn't work, I don't know what else will.

[00:23:57]besides putting a another repeater like up the hill or something.

[00:24:35]I don't know if I'll be able to aim it south, though. It likes to aim north, but hopefully it'll still charge how it is. All right, it's up there. I doubt you're going to be able to see it because the sky is so bright right now from all the overcast, but we're back up to I think it was 50 or 60 ft right there. You see it?

[00:25:03]I don't even see it. So, you probably can't either. All right, let's go back inside and test it out. All right, so I've got the analyzer up so we can see this.

[00:25:15]Hopefully, you can see that.

[00:25:18]Um, somebody just sent an advert. I am in the test channel right now. I'm going to send out a test message and we'll see what happens. Boom. Test.

[00:25:30]Okay, I finally got out again. I haven't been able to get out in like 3 days. We'll see if we get a response.

[00:25:46]I mean, I got the Omab bot acknowledgement down here, but it has not shown up on my phone quite yet.

[00:25:57]Come on, bring it back. Bring it back.

[00:26:00]And I also got NC1V responded as well, and I don't have it on my phone quite yet. I wonder if I should like reboot it. All right, I'm going to reboot the repeater real quick.

[00:26:14]My repeater did do an advert all by itself, but we're going to do it again.

[00:26:26]I'm going to sync the clock and then we will advert again.

[00:26:38]Okay, advert did get out.

[00:26:47]which is good. Okay, now we're going to do another test message.

[00:26:56]I mean, it looks promising whenever I send it out.

[00:27:05]Come on, get back to me. So, the omabot did acknowledge again on the analyzer, but it's not showing up here on the phone. I'm going to go to the public channel and try it here. Test for YouTube. Back in the tree. Fingers crossed.

[00:27:34]CQ CQ. This is AVJ. Do you read me?

[00:27:40]I don't know. Okay, while we're waiting, I am going to log back into the repeater and I'm going to rename it tree repeater because it's in the tree for now. Tree repeater. Save that. Now I'm going to reboot it again.

[00:27:59]Going to sync the clock just in case.

[00:28:04]We will advert.

[00:28:23]I mean, it gets all over Omaha. I'll advert myself again.

[00:28:41]I mean, you would think I would get a response back. Oh, okay. So, I am getting a response from NC1V just now, and that did show up on my phone. Test for YouTube. Tree Peteer is back.

[00:29:05]What's cool about this is you can click on the messages that we heard and we can see it replay.

[00:29:13]So, it does bounce off of PT01, which is a usually a pretty good one for me. And again, another part of this might be because not as many people have switched over to spread factor 7 yet. True repeater is the one watt booster.

[00:29:44]Okay. Anyone got me?

[00:29:56]Oh, Biscuit.

[00:29:58]Thank you, Biscuit. He says he's got me.

[00:30:01]Sweet. Okay, so I am getting messages.

[00:30:19]Yes, I got you.

[00:30:22]Anybody else over here that I might have missed? Oh, Timmo.

[00:30:26]I got Timmo.

[00:30:31]What are you doing?

[00:30:39]Okay, cool. So, I am getting some messages back finally.

[00:30:44]I don't know if I'm getting everybody since we've got just two people right now, but that's okay. I am getting messages. All right, sweet. Okay, so I'm going to let this go for a couple of days.

[00:30:58]So, Timmo, he was doing some antennas at the radios in the park and he made one out of some like copper tubing and I made a little short. So, that's where the what are you doing is coming from.

[00:31:13]Oh, there we go. Biscuit, what up, YouTube?

[00:31:17]Thank you, Biscuit, for playing along with my little games here. Okay, cool.

[00:31:21]So, I think I think the tree Peter is is the ticket for the most part, especially with all the trees and all the leaves. I could sit there and watch that screen all freaking day. Okay. Uh, anyway, I think that's going to wrap it up for this video. I think all the problem really is is all the leaves on the trees. So, I just need I need the height. Just like everybody says, height is might. And then, of course, like I keep saying, as soon as everybody switches over to SF7, I think all is going to be well after that. But that probably won't be for at least another couple of weeks, maybe even longer. I'm not exactly sure. I will just have to play it by ear and see how it goes. All right. Well, I think that's pretty much all I got. If anybody has any questions, comments, or concerns, or suggestions, make sure you put those down in the comments section. If this video was helpful or entertaining whatsoever, make sure you like that smash button on your way out, and I will see you on the next one. Actually, the the next suggestion, I guess, would be mounting the tree repeater back in the tree with this big ass antenna. That'll be the next challenge.

[00:32:49]Oh, I just broke it. Yeah, I kind of need like three hands to do this. Okay, this is probably not ideal to let the repeater hang.

[00:32:58]Oh, but I do need a wrench.