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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Off grid mesh network for txt and location?
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SE Ohio
Member
# Posted: 6 Jan 2023 09:00
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Has anyone experimented with a mesh network? Looks fairly cheap and easy to solar-power. One can set up a few nodes to cover their property and be able to text and locate each other via tablet/phone etc. without needing/having cell service. No ham license required.


Nice intro video here, I’m not affiliated with product or presenter 🙂

https://youtu.be/DumgHz56IjI

Nobadays
Member
# Posted: 6 Jan 2023 13:12
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Kind of but not quite....

We are on Starlink for primary internet and though it reaches to my shop about 50' away it is weak. I installed a cheap/simple TPLink extender outside under the porch. THIS EXTENDER This not only helps the signal at our shop but also extends the service to the other half acre of our property, and our neighbor roughly 50-75 yards from that extender can get pretty good internet in their cabin. Enough for good phone calls and phone data needs. He pays us $300/yr to use it. In addition the neighbor below us, another 75-100 yards gets a "sometimes" signal at their cabin. His shop is at about 60 yards below us so he wired an outlet under the eaves with clear view to our cabin and his. There he plugged in another TPLink extender and now gets fine service in his cabin... they can stream TV off it and their son sometimes comes up and can work/zoom meetings etc. from their place. They too pay us $300/you to use our internet. So half of our yearly cost for internet is paid by the neighbors!

As for connectivity around the property... we have an acre on a hillside, we can receive calls or text anywhere on our property as well as both of our neighbor's properties, of course and actually a quite a ways below/above our place. We kept the log-ons the same for our 2.4ghz signal and the two TPLink extenders. This way we can move about and just use the best signal. At times we need to manually switch to the nearest extender.

The lower neighbor was having issues at first maintaining a signal at the extender, we solved that by just raising the Starlink router in our cabin.... it is on the wall closest to his place.

Long post but this works for us!

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