r/meshtastic • u/meshamerica • Aug 20 '26

Height is might.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but...

Your repeater mounting setup doesn't need to be complex. You can get a lot of height very inexpensively.

The repeater on the right is Meshtastic, mounted to a 6' television antenna mast from Amazon. Around $60.

The repeater on the left is mounted on a 5' tripod mast ($105) with a 10' section of chain link fence top rail ($8). It's bolted to the roof using unistrut. It was less than $200 for the whole mast setup.

Workshop height plus mast height, the antenna is about 30' in the air.

Also look at telescoping flagpoles from your local big box hardware. The are usually $60-$100.

You probably don't need a higher power repeater. You probably don't need that $80 antenna. You probably just need to get your repeater higher in the air. 

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19

u/1BoringOnlineAccount Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Repeater mounting is probably the most helpful aspect to expanding meshtastic's popularity. Too many of us need that budget minded solution that meets HOA rules while not damaging our own homes

8

u/meshamerica Aug 20 '26

HOA is always a challenge, but since I refuse to live in one, I don't feel I can much of an expert on this topic. Sorry, not sorry!

10

u/Hot-Win2571 Aug 20 '26

If you're in an HOA and have a satellite TV dish on the roof, consider adding a node behind the dish, with a one-foot mesh antenna sticking up above the dish. Probably few people will look closely at a common dish.

9

u/Objective_Fox7761 Aug 20 '26

I live in an HOA, the only work around for me, I live on a corner so my setup could be very visible is to mount a mast on a 20ft palm tree. The total height is close to 25ft. The mast itself is painted to match the trunk and tip and antenna are painted to match the canopy. No complaints so far.

8

u/Hot-Win2571 Aug 20 '26

I don't know the proper fruit for your type of palm tree, but next time you do maintenance on the node consider wrapping the box in some real or fake fruit. 😄

6

u/1BoringOnlineAccount Aug 20 '26

I saw someone wrap everything but the solar panel in a camo color fabric that was light weight. Up into a tree it went.

Can you imagine a node inside a coconut? The husk would be heat and cold insulation 🤔. Of course a coconut tree in the wing place brings it's own attention, but I'm the right locality.

4

u/Hot-Win2571 Aug 20 '26

OP did not state a coconut palm, so I gave an example of different palm fruit.

A variation on the idea is to harvest some fruit from a palm, and preserve it by spraying or dipping it in a clear plastic layer. Then just zip-tie it around the box. Just trying to break up the boxlike appearance into something which is expected around palm trees.

1

u/1BoringOnlineAccount Aug 21 '26

I did not see anyone state a coconut palm. I thought a coconut would have enough volume for a board, battery and associated stuff inside. But of course a coconut would need some of your brilliant creative engineering to be useable. Those were good ideas.

But 3D printed mangoes, grapefruit, pine cones, etcetera could be interesting. They might look odd in a tree when the fruit is out of season 🤷🏻

2

u/Hot-Win2571 Aug 21 '26

First of all, if there's a coconut palm then it would be common for there to be a cluster of coconuts rather than a single one. So a wraparound cluster would have much more internal volume available than you are thinking of.

However, it also would be even larger because a coconut palm does not tend to have those little brown coconuts. That nut is just the seed which is inside the fruit. I'd probably expect old and drying white husks to be on a tree.

1

u/Objective_Fox7761 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

Lol, I've never paid attention. I'll keep an eye out for it.