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Atticus_1354 posted:How much power do your devices use and how many days between recharges? Power supply is provisioned at 65 watts; with all the features going I think 50-55 peak draw is common. I don't have a way of measuring my configuration's draw, so assume 65w. (I don't use all the features so my actual draw is likely to be around 15-20w from what I'm reading online.) I'd like to get at least a full night's use out of it, ideally at least two. Outages in my area rarely last longer than a day.
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Jan 21, 2024 07:39
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I would suggest first spending $15 on a Kill-A-Watt knockoff and seeing what the average draw looks like for you under different circumstances. We got the 256 Wh Anker for our hurricane box (they apparently make up to 2048 Wh  ), although more for phones and such than your application (although I need to get a sleep study done sooner rather than later, so that may change). That would seemingly get you through one night at around 30 watts of current draw.I paid extra for the Anker because, as you noted, the competition was all no-name dropshippers. That combined with large banks of lithium batteries makes me nervous.
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Jan 26, 2024 02:51
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Hold onto your butts and check ya preps:quote:Warm waters across the tropical Atlantic in May 2005 prompted warnings of an active hurricane season ahead. A record-smashing 28 storms formed, including Hurricane Katrina. Also, reminder: check in with your homeowners/renters insurance provider from time to time and make sure that your coverage is adequate or that there aren't any changes that you've missed.
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May 24, 2024 14:22
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Lessons learned from Beryl as I enter my 13th hour without power, with possibly several days to go: I wish I had sprung for a wireless fridge/freezer thermometer. I would have to open the fridge to check the temp and that will instantly spike the temp. Is my food good? Bad? It's Schrodinger's food poisoning at the moment.
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Jul 9, 2024 00:01
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Discussion Quorum posted:Lessons learned from Beryl as I enter my 13th hour without power, with possibly several days to go: I wish I had sprung for a wireless fridge/freezer thermometer. I would have to open the fridge to check the temp and that will instantly spike the temp. Chest freezers hold their temp way better and can also be opened without the heaver-than-air cold air inside all spilling out. They are also dead cheap to run. Like the energy star sticker estimates at like $20 per year for basically any new one.
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Jul 9, 2024 00:09
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Nitrousoxide posted:Chest freezers hold their temp way better and can also be opened without the heaver-than-air cold air inside all spilling out. They are also dead cheap to run. Like the energy star sticker estimates at like $20 per year for basically any new one. I love my chest freezer. I need to do a defrost soon though.
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Jul 9, 2024 00:46
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Nitrousoxide posted:Chest freezers hold their temp way better and can also be opened without the heaver-than-air cold air inside all spilling out. They are also dead cheap to run. Like the energy star sticker estimates at like $20 per year for basically any new one. Yes, but I'm talking about my refrigerator. Even my basic drawer freezer is still frozen solid. Meanwhile my fridge was 52F when I finally opened it to check. It would have been nice to know when it was crossing 40. I still ate a bunch of it
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Jul 9, 2024 03:30
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Discussion Quorum posted:Lessons learned from Beryl as I enter my 13th hour without power, with possibly several days to go
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Jul 9, 2024 04:12
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Cugel the Clever posted:Don't hesitate to call out anything else you found remarkable, whether it's something you'd not really considered in your prep that turned out to came in handy or other items that you missed that you'll get for next time. I'm sure folks would be curious to see a good AAR to help inform their own preparedness. 
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Jul 9, 2024 04:37
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Discussion Quorum posted:Lessons learned from Beryl as I enter my 13th hour without power, with possibly several days to go: I wish I had sprung for a wireless fridge/freezer thermometer. I would have to open the fridge to check the temp and that will instantly spike the temp. Do you have a wired thermometer for your oven or grill? You could use that as a temporary measure. Have you looked at wireless versions? I'd like to get a kestrel drop, but that's probably overkill for what you're talking about?
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Jul 9, 2024 05:27
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Atticus_1354 posted:Do you have a wired thermometer for your oven or grill? Yes, several. If I had thought about this before the power went out, it would have been an option. But I would have had to open the fridge door to put the probe in. This is all theorycrafting for the next one at this point, everything in my fridge is toast by now lol
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Jul 9, 2024 13:54
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Cugel the Clever posted:Don't hesitate to call out anything else you found remarkable, whether it's something you'd not really considered in your prep that turned out to came in handy or other items that you missed that you'll get for next time. I'm sure folks would be curious to see a good AAR to help inform their own preparedness. One thing you can do in case of any expected outage is take a few metal mixing bowls, fill them with water, and put them in your freezer a day in advance. Not necessary for a chest freezer, but otherwise it can extend the life of any food in your regular freezer by a day or two.
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Jul 11, 2024 06:17
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Five days now. Closer to six, really. No estimated restoration date available. I'm very happy my wife and son were already out of town on an unrelated trip, but now they're kind of stuck up there. I'm bouncing around between the office (I don't have to go in, but it's air conditioned and has real food available), the house (which is hot and stuffy and sucks), and my parents' (which is fine but it's over an hour away from the other two). Last year's big investment for this kind of thing was a large power bank. I haven't used it because I have still had access to power - at work, driving, at other peoples' houses - although that is of course very situational. My general rule of keeping my tank 2/3 - 3/4 full whenever there is a hurricane in the Gulf paid off. Gas lines are straight out of the '70s. This was also true when I rode out Gustav in Baton Rouge in 2008. When we had our big freeze a few years back, I put emergency blankets reflective side in on all of our windows and it seemed to make a big difference. If I was home more, I would be doing that in the reverse now. The other thing that is definitely going on my "for next time" list is a bow saw. We had some limbs come down that were beyond what my 10" pruning saw could realistically handle. My solution for that would have been a reciprocating saw with pruning blades... but it's corded  Taking a real close look at generators. Not for this one, but for the next one (which seems an inevitability). This is Houston's second mass extended outage in as many months and we're only 1/3 of the way through hurricane season. And this was a category 1. All we really need is power for one portable AC to cool a bedroom (our son is 4, which is young enough that sleeping in bed with us is still a cool adventure), some lights, a fan or two, the router, and a few charging devices. I'm spitballing all of that at ~1500 watts. Accounting for some buffer and de-rating by 20% to allow for using either gasoline or propane, 2300W of nameplate capacity seems like the minimum. In theory I guess a 2500W generator would do the job, but it would be running flat out whenever the AC is going. Financially I can get comfortable with stepping up to the 3500W/4000W class, but they're 100+lbs. Oof. Running the fridge would be nice, but we're renting, so would be relying on extension cords rather than joining the generator to the house wiring via an interlock. Dealing with multiple cords and entry points to power things (especially accounting for 20+ feet from generator to house) in both bedroom and kitchen seems like a pain, and the price increase for a larger generator will pay for several very nice coolers and a lot of ice. Speaking of - definitely getting a nice 55-65 quart cooler, and loading up on ice BEFORE the storm hits next time around. 7lb bags of ice don't go very far when there's a limit of two.
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Jul 13, 2024 05:01
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Discussion Quorum posted:
Obviously, it's time to treat yourself. https://silkysaws.com/silky-katanaboy-650-folding-saw/
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Jul 13, 2024 05:32
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Haha I saw that. I came across the Bushcraft subreddit when looking for recommendations and it was immediately clear I had stumbled into the "enthusiast" segment. Gonna get a Bahco I think. I borrowed my neighbor's cheap aluminum one with no handle and a rusty blade and it worked just fine.
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Jul 13, 2024 18:16
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Did something recently change in Houston infrastructure wise? I seem to remember you guys weathering larger hurricanes better in the past. Or have years of state neglect finally reached the tipping point? Seeing how this has/is going down, I am considering changing some priorities.
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Jul 13, 2024 20:25
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ASAPI posted:Did something recently change in Houston infrastructure wise? I seem to remember you guys weathering larger hurricanes better in the past. Or have years of state neglect finally reached the tipping point? One factor is definitely that the storms are getting bigger, because there's more energy in the system from global warming, and they're taking different paths, and are able to sustain high winds for longer once they head inland. That in turn creates more damage.
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Jul 14, 2024 00:38
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Guys, don't worry, most of my guys still don't have power, but downtown (where no one is today) never lost power!
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Jul 14, 2024 01:18
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Discussion Quorum posted:Haha I saw that. I came across the Bushcraft subreddit when looking for recommendations and it was immediately clear I had stumbled into the "enthusiast" segment. Gonna get a Bahco I think. I borrowed my neighbor's cheap aluminum one with no handle and a rusty blade and it worked just fine. The smaller silky saws are hard to beat. Bahco is probably fine for occasional use. But how good and handy my makita chainsaw is has taken a lot of the appeal out of handsaws. It's nice if you already have the batteries for your other power tools and don't have a big project that requires messing with gas.
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Jul 14, 2024 02:43
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shame on you all for not thinking of budk first
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Jul 14, 2024 02:48
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I don't think a 4" chain would get through anything I can't handle with my hand tools. Maybe if I was doing this poo poo every week. I am bought into the Ego system but $200-$300 for a chainsaw that I will use once in a blue moon is a bit steep. Here's something I hadn't thought about until I started shopping for a generator and related supplies. Everyone knows about gas being an issue after a storm, of course - long lines, hoarding, gas stations without power, others sold out. Propane cylinder swaps here also sold out pretty quickly, although those who were clued in enough to go get refills instead had no real trouble once the various Uhauls and whatnot got their power back. What I was surprised to discover is that almost two weeks on, 10W30 is sold the gently caress out locally, with 5W30 looking pretty skinny too. Generators need lots of oil changes, and most call for 10W30 in warm weather, which seems like the most likely explanation to me. Thankfully oil stockpiles well, so I'm going to keep a half dozen or so quarts on hand.
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Jul 21, 2024 02:40
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So I've got a dozen, or so, old Army canvas cots (the kind with the wooden frames) that I use whenever me and the kids go camping. Two have completely ripped down the middle and I'm trying to figure out the repair. Any of you old enough to remember using these cots and do you remember how repairs were done?
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Aug 2, 2024 16:00
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I know that WWII reenactor supply companies make replacements, but I don't know anything about repairing them. A quick google says that you can use canvas painting drop cloths, but not how.
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Aug 2, 2024 16:31
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You’re looking for a “cot cover replacement” It looks like for the wood cots there’s nothing off the shelf and you’re going to have to custom make them using an old one as a template. This thread looks like a good place to start: https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/replacement-of-old-army-cot-canvas-cover.242685/#google_vignette
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Aug 2, 2024 21:53
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Nystral posted:It looks like for the wood cots there’s nothing off the shelf and you’re going to have to custom make them using an old one as a template. There are but they're $yikes https://www.atthefront.com/product-p/usgmcot.htm
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Aug 3, 2024 21:41
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McNally posted:There are but they're $yikes Yeah this feels like for the price of a replacement you could find someone locally to make them. If you need to find someone who can do it I’d ask at the local fabric shop / sewing repair place and see if they can help.
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Aug 4, 2024 01:20
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But what do the cot people mean by this?atthefront posted:Color? Yes, most originals are green. However, we know that green is not socially acceptable in the living historian community so we made them in olive drab #3. Some originals really are od#3 but we like to ridicule the khakinazis at every opportunity.
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Aug 5, 2024 14:02
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Ironhead posted:But what do the cot people mean by this? There's a lot of argument among WWII reenactors over the "correct" color of US gear in WWII, mostly due to color saturation choices Steven Spielberg made for Saving Private Ryan. A lot of people think US stuff was khaki when in reality it was varying shades of green.
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Aug 5, 2024 15:12
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McNally posted:There's a lot of argument among WWII reenactors over the "correct" color of US gear in WWII, mostly due to color saturation choices Steven Spielberg made for Saving Private Ryan. A lot of people think US stuff was khaki when in reality it was varying shades of green.
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Aug 5, 2024 15:27
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Thought I'd bump this thread to give a shout out to Shifty Pony's generator thread over in DIY in case anyone missed it. I know nothing about generators, but it sure seems like they do!
Cugel the Clever fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Oct 17, 2024 |
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Oct 17, 2024 06:48
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That's awesome, thanks for that!
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Oct 17, 2024 13:19
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^^^^who did you piss off now? It Could Happen Here has been really hit or miss for a while but occasionally they have really good episodes. This is one about the recent hurricane that devastated Asheville/WNC and has some interesting pointers about water and communications. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/the-things-that-helped-people-in-224840218/ Also, has anyone ever messed around with Meshtastic devices? Seems like a low-cost way to create an off-grid comms system assuming you have other users nearby. https://meshtastic.org/
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Oct 18, 2024 13:47
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pantslesswithwolves posted:Also, has anyone ever messed around with Meshtastic devices? Seems like a low-cost way to create an off-grid comms system assuming you have other users nearby. My only gripe is ATAK is primarily for Android, and being an iPhone dork means I'm kind of SOL. That said there's rumor the military is moving away from ATAK because the Android system is more vulnerable to hacking. Then again I'm just a civilian so realistically military mesh networks should be running on their encrypted channels.
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Oct 18, 2024 14:35
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Android Apocalypse posted:That said there's rumor the military is moving away from ATAK because the Android system is more vulnerable to hacking. Then again I'm just a civilian so realistically military mesh networks should be running on their encrypted channels. Meh, that's not really a good reason to move away from it - the issue with Android is less that its vulnerable to hacking, more that as an Open Source build project it has a lot of contributors unlike Apple which is much more closed source, but Apple has its own issues and tends to hide when they have been hacked or keep quiet about it (like the zero click hacks that were used to compromise a ton of journalists that specifically targetted Apple). The opposite is also true - being more open means more eyes on a project to understand impact of code changes, the military just needs to take over developmental control of any specific kernel or code used in Android for military purposes. You can make Android nearly as secure, it just requires effort and compensating controls that the military hasn't done yet. It also makes little sense for the military to align around Apple specific tech since Apple is so walled garden and generally will not abide the sort of Federal level of intervention in their products. So it'll likely be some sort tech stack that replaces ATAK. pantslesswithwolves posted:^^^^who did you piss off now? So I do a lot of work with LoRA, the main downside is capacity - LoRa is made for sending small packets, very small, for IoT level stuff, not really as a carrier of large messages. In an emergency its absolutely useful for text messaging, but not much more. Its max capacity is about 253 kbits/s but thats over a much shorter range, long distance depending on the protocal you'll likely see closer to 0.3-1kbits. Distance to the next gateway affects your payload/packet size immensely, LoRa's advantage is its flexibility but its also a limiting factor for the sort of data you want to send. The number of devices is also limited by the number of gateways available, each Lora gateway can only hand 120 devices. Its more made for sensors and other things that are sending occasional small packets of data about their inputs. Its really neat to see what's being done from a mesh network setup. Some tidbits about the actual standard: https://www.lab5e.com/docs/lora/dr_sf/ CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Oct 18, 2024 |
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Oct 18, 2024 14:41
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pantslesswithwolves posted:^^^^who did you piss off now? I skimmed the transcript and I think these are the takeaways: Worked well/good to have: ATVs/eMTBs Stored food Even if you didn't have water or gas, having containers for water and gas, especially if they are carryable. Community/Sharing Still needs work: Communications, though garmin inreach and sat phones were good. Unclear if iphone sat thing worked. Not Useful: Guns
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Oct 18, 2024 19:07
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pantslesswithwolves posted:^^^^who did you piss off now? quote:It Could Happen Here has been really hit or miss for a while but occasionally they have really good episodes. This is one about the recent hurricane that devastated Asheville/WNC and has some interesting pointers about water and communications. Nice. I've always liked It Could Happen here.
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Oct 18, 2024 19:41
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pantslesswithwolves posted:^^^^who did you piss off now? Thanks, will give it a listen when I get a chance. I really liked it in the beginning but it started feeling kinda unfocused and too much to keep up with so I eventually unsubbed.
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Oct 18, 2024 20:08
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CommieGIR posted:So I do a lot of work with LoRA, the main downside is capacity - LoRa is made for sending small packets, very small, for IoT level stuff, not really as a carrier of large messages. In an emergency its absolutely useful for text messaging, but not much more. Its max capacity is about 253 kbits/s but thats over a much shorter range, long distance depending on the protocal you'll likely see closer to 0.3-1kbits. Distance to the next gateway affects your payload/packet size immensely, LoRa's advantage is its flexibility but its also a limiting factor for the sort of data you want to send. The number of devices is also limited by the number of gateways available, each Lora gateway can only hand 120 devices. Thanks, this is good info. What I would love to do is configure some LilyGo devices and give them out to friends so we could do text-based communication if cell service goes down, but we’re all spread out within .5-2 miles of each other so I’m wondering whether it would still be effective. It’s also range considerations as to why I haven’t bought some Baofeng 4-packs and handed them out to friends, pre-programmed. Discussion Quorum posted:Thanks, will give it a listen when I get a chance. I really liked it in the beginning but it started feeling kinda unfocused and too much to keep up with so I eventually unsubbed. The episodes where Robert Evans leads the conversation tend to be the better ones but otherwise it can deteriorate into the Gen Z Giggle Power Hour and I tend to skip those episodes. I also don’t understand why they release a weekly anthology of all episodes across ICHH and BTB; even at its best this isn’t a podcast I’d want to listen to for six hours straight.
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Oct 20, 2024 14:39
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pantslesswithwolves posted:Thanks, this is good info. What I would love to do is configure some LilyGo devices and give them out to friends so we could do text-based communication if cell service goes down, but we’re all spread out within .5-2 miles of each other so I’m wondering whether it would still be effective. It’s also range considerations as to why I haven’t bought some Baofeng 4-packs and handed them out to friends, pre-programmed. People have put nodes up on balloons, kites, and drones to increase the range. I want some units that I can give out to people when they visit my ranch for a small localized network. https://www.instagram.com/p/C5bUeXnrIlF/?igsh=dmRjODFncjRqMzhr
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Oct 21, 2024 00:23
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Atticus_1354 posted:People have put nodes up on balloons, kites, and drones to increase the range. I want some units that I can give out to people when they visit my ranch for a small localized network. You can also setup Solar Powered Repeaters/Gateways to help extend that range.
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Oct 22, 2024 19:12
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