Getting really close to a finished Unit. Smart Pi Touch Pro was on sale, and it seemed ideal for my purposes. I need to find a second nut for the HDMI on the back so I can make it closer to flush. BTW, I like the HDMI option because it allows me to operate "twin head" on the bench. It's got a nice multi-touch capacitive membrane, but I prefer keyboard and mouse, especialy during initial setup and configuration.
I also prefer my Web Browser view set to 50%. The screen is still readable, and it offers much more room for the Meshtastic Web UI display format.
'sig
I *love* this silly thing. Right now running gqrs, listening to a local FM station in stereo.
Have Meshtastic open in Chromium browser, surfing the net in Firefox. Quick, snappy response. I think I have about $240.00 invested in it. I wonder how it does running Fusion.
Its getting close to time to migrate away from Windoze for good...
This looks great. We have discussed a benchtop version of the Nomad. What would you do differently?
Well, (IMHO) the one thing a base unit needs to do is establish contact reliably at greater distances. To do this without increasing power (and requiring a Ham license) it will need an "awesome antenna". Which would imply, somewhere up high, outdoors. Hopefully less than 100 Ft away but likely more than 30 ft from the base station.
Even good low loss cable will eat up 2-3 db of your signal, and since you ony have 100 mw in the first place... I'm having doubts about even imbedding the LoRa radio in the base unit. Instead, place a wx tight unit on the pole and connect via Bluetooth (or perhaps WiFi). This ensures as much power as possible is being radiated.
Thus the base unit becomes more of a user interface to connect wih the radio.
*OR*
Design the base to radiate more power and require a Technician Class license. Which I believe doesn't require passing a theory test anymore. Just an application and a fee?
What do you see?
p.s. I'd probably install TWO of the HDMI connectors on the back to repeat BOTH Pi HDMI outputs. Could run Tri-head then. ;-)
