Yesterday, the bee guys came to move the bees from our outdoor shower. There was a big hive up in the underpinnings. Thanks to Jeff and Tyler for moving the bees. We are now going to name our house the Honeycomb Hideout. #beekeeping #bees #polinators

We have bees swarming in our outdoor shower. The bee expert wanted a picture to see if they were honey bees. I was scared of getting too close and get stung, so I drew a picture instead. They look like honey bees to me!

We have a swarm of bees in the outdoor shower. It was still a bit dark when I got back from paddling this morning. I am glad that I hadn't fully disrobed before realizing the buzzing sound was from ticked off bees getting we're from me turning on the shower. Now to find some to remove them.

Was still a bit windy, so I paddled about a mile to the mouth of Brigands Bay and paddled around in the shelter of their canals and then back home. Still nice paddle, even if I got a lot of spray from jumping the waves 🙂 #obx #outerbanks #northcarolina #obxnc #paddleboard #pronepaddle #sunrise #photography

Welcome to the new 2024 Hurricane Season! #obx #outerbanks #theouterbanks #obxnc #weather #hurricane #noaahurricanes #nationalweatherservice

Today is one of those days where you watch the barometric pressure map and read out predictions on wind direction and speed for days to know that today is going to be the perfect glassy day for a paddle. Well, it didnt dissapoint. Air temp in the upper 60s. I couldnt really tell where the wind was coming from since we were in a state of flux on direction. Awesome day to be out on the Sound. I only did about 3 miles today. I did one of my shorter circuits. But still worth getting out. #pronepaddle #pronepaddling #pronezone #obx #outerbanks #hatterasisland #capehatteras

Its that time of year again. No more 24 hour 4wd access. Surf is smaller and sloppier than yesterday. It might work for bigger boards, but I think I will stay dry and nurse my wrist from yesterday. Air temp in the mid 60s. Water temp in the shore break 62. Wind out of the SW. A nice cloud bank off the coast. Saw lightning early this morning before first light. #outerbanks #obx #northcarolina #4wd

Wow, where did April go? This is my first full month capturing weather conditions for the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) here in Frisco, NC. We didnt get a whole lot of rain in April. Hopefully we will get a little in May to help the gardens grow. #weather #nws #nationalweatherservice #outerbanks #obx #northcarolina

Things are warming up. The shallow Pamlico Sound fluctuates quite a bit based on solar radiation and wind. YOu can see where the creek behind our house (that feeds into the Sound) got over 70 degrees. You can also see that yesterday morning, the battery died in my sensor before I got a chance to get out and put in a fully charged. I gotta get a better solar panel for this thing. #iot #arduino #raspberrypi #sensors #weather #hatteras #hatterasisland #obx #outerbanks #theouterbanks

#meshtastic #meshnetwork #emergencycomms View quoted note →

Here is some information on what I did to get meshtastic running on Linux (specifically Raspberry Pi) I used a Raspberry Pi 3B. And I used this Pi-Hat for my LoRa. I read you can do this on a PiZero. I just bought a PiZero 2 that I plan on trying out in the next week or so.

Amazon

Amazon

flash your raspberry pi with Raspian Bookworm 64 bit. I use the version that is Raspberry Pi OS Lite (make sure you get 64 bit) -- I dont use desktop to save on resources. You can get the image here. Basically then use the Raspberry Pi Imager and choose "Use Custom" to select your image that you downloaded https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ I am using the linux native meshtastic noted here: https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/linux-native/ The way I got it was to go to the github releases:

GitHub

Releases · meshtastic/firmware

The official firmware for Meshtastic, an open-source, off-grid mesh communication system. - meshtastic/firmware

Scroll down to find "Assets" for the version you want to download. Right click on the meshtasticd_*_arm64.deb file you want. Right click on it to get the link. Then on your raspberrypi, use wget (you may have to install wget) to retrieve the file you got the link for: wget https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/releases/download/v2.3.6.7a3570a/meshtasticd_2.3.6.7a3570a_arm64.deb You can then install it now that you have the file locally. sudo apt install ./meshtasticd_2.3.6.7a3570a_arm64.deb Then make sure you have SPI turned on for your raspberry pi: sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt make sure these 2 lines are in there: dtoverlay=spi0-0cs enable_uart=1 Now configure meshtastic. Edit this yaml file (NOTE: it is white space sensitive. so, just remove the # to uncomment. Dont remove the white spaces or add any) sudo nano /etc/meshtasticd/config.yaml for the pi-hat that I added for LoRa, I uncommented this: Lora: Module: sx1262 # Waveshare SX126X XXXM DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true CS: 21 IRQ: 16 Busy: 20 Reset: 18 I then installed libulfius2. sudo apt install libulfius2.7 Then start meshtasticd. You should be able to then hit the web server (NOTE: I also use Tailscale so that I can hit my device from outside of my home network without having to port forward. This is handy if you want to control your mesh network from the outside world) sudo systemctl enable meshtasticd --now

We have a community radio station here on Hatteras Island, NC. Its primary purpose is to provide emergency services to keep both locals and visitors informed on various emergency situations. When the internet and other comms are down, the FM radio station is one way to keep people up to date. It is an all volunteer station. I am one of the engineers keeping the station running. When we are not in "emergency mode" (which is most of the time), we broadcast rock and roll music (primarily from the 60's, 70's, and 80's). Here is a brief view of the transmitter room. You can get more info about our radio station here (we also have a live streaming feed if you are not in the area) https://www.radiohatteras.org/ #radio #radiostation #emergencycomms #prepping

This is one of my gardens that is a hybrid wicking bed. I use cloth grow bags with soil that allows the roots to air prune. I also have a floater valve that connects to the hose to auto fill with water when needed, allowing for wicking into the grow bags. I also use tiny stones to cover the water line to keep the mosquitoes for using this as their nursery for little baby blood suckers. The video has sound that has some explanation. #gardening #raisedbeds #hydroponics

I am experimenting a bit with Lora and Meshtastic mesh networking. I wanted to see how it could track me as I did a prone paddle out in the sound. Since I am only a few inches from the water, and the node I was carrying didn't have its antenna vertical, transmitting probably wasn't ideal. But at only 60mW, this aint bad. Looking at the first pic, the red dots with the diamond in them are the beacons. The cluster is home base. The one the furthest north is about a mile from home base. I did paddle well around Brooks Point this morning, so I wasn't getting received all the way home. I just need to find a friend in Brigands Bay who would be willing to put a node out on their deck to add to the mesh 😉 I used a T-Beam lora transceiver on my paddleboard (with the factory crappy antenna). At home base, I have a similar device with a high gain antenna outside. I then have a Raspberry Pi with a Lora tranceiver on it in the house that is part of the mesh. It takes data and then pushes it to an MQTT server that is on the same Raspberry Pi. I have another pi running node-red that listens to the MQTT server and bridges the data over to my ThingsBoard server that has a Postgres database. I queried the DB for the specific node and mapped on Google Maps. Lots of steps, but something easily automated with a little code. #meshtastic #meshnetwork #hamradio #radio

What do you do when there is an onshore wind from the East or the SE? Go paddling on the sound. Super glassy. Water super warm. Awesome workout! Wind almost non-existent. Air and water temp in the mid 60s. #pronepaddling #pronezone #pronepaddle #obx #outerbanks #hatteras #hatterasisland

Wind was pretty strong with some gusts almost 20mph out of the west to WSW. I made a mistake to ruck in sheltered areas. Of course the mosquitoes had the same idea. #outerbanks #theouterbanks #obx #obxnc #hatterasisland #capehatteras #capehatterasnps

Beautiful morning. Soon the sunrise will be early enough to go surfing before work. Temperature is perfect. Light offshore wind. The higher tide keeping the surf from getting to drained out on the sandbars #obx #hatterasisland #hatteras #capehatteras #outerbanks #theouterbanks #nature #lighthouses #surfing

Some have asked what I have been using for my Meshtastic setup. I have a few things that I am using: LILYGO LORA32 T-Beam: I am using this for my mobile use since it has an 18650 battery holder. I connect to this either from my laptop or my phone via bluetooth Heltec V3 (wifi and LoRa): I got a two pack of these form Amazon. I am using 2 of them for different things - One I am using to connect to a high gain antenna on my roof. This allows me to connect to other devices in my area. - The other, I have setup for WiFi instead of bluetooth. I am using this to bridge traffic over MQTT. This allows me to have others who arent in my area also subscribe to the same channels and have MQTT send messages from my Meshtastic mesh network to theirs in another part of the world by using the internet as a bridge. (NOTE: the device I am using for this is connected to a Starlink router so normal terrestrial outages of internet wont affect it like cable cuts, etc) -- Another NOTE: I am waiting for a Raspberry Pi LoRaWAN hat to come in. I will be replacing this device with a Raspberry pi to get more capability. Here is some of the equipment I am using for the antenna for the device that I have up on the roof: Rokland 915 MHz Antenna

Rokland

5.8 dBi N-Male Omni Outdoor Helium 915 MHz Antenna for RAK Miner Hotsp

5.8 dBi 915 MHz 31" fiberglass antenna with N-male connector and U-bolt bracket mount. This is certified and designed for outdoor environments and ...

Depending on what type of connector is on your device, you may need to get a pigtail to fit the antenna connector. This is what I got:

Rokland

8 in. Antenna extension coaxial cable RP-SMA male to N-Male RG316

RP-SMA male to N Male extension cable, 8 inches length, RG316.RP-SMA male connector on one end and an N Male connector on the other end.  We do ...

#meshtastic #comms #lora #lorawan #prepping #communication

wow, 10,000 mAh battery. Most of these things just have made up numbers and arent what they say they are. But, for the price, I had to give it a try. I want to see how long it will keep an ESP32 device running without any solar backup. Especially if the ESP device sleeps most of the time and wakes up every 15 minutes to take a sensor reading, send the data via WiFi, and then go back to sleep. This battery is a hoss though. Almost the size and weight of a cell phone. #lora #esp32 #arduino #meshtastic #iot #lorawan

We had a decent rain yesterday. Our NWS weather gauge reads 0.285", but I can only report to two significant digits, so I am going to put it at 0.29". Our digital weather station says that the event was .24". So, relatively close. The NWS weather gauge, while analog, has a larger catch funnel and is more out in the open. It is a nice cool morning in the upper 50's. The wind has died down considerably. But, we had some heaving gusts last night around 1am. #weather #outerbanks #obx #theouterbanks #hatteras #hatterasisland