Wife met up with friends while I was busy elsewhere. When I got free, I rode down to meet them, took the car home.

Fun ride!

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/65231458

Raised garden:

Kayak rack:

Work benches/storage:

(Don't judge my cluttered garage, that's why I built the benches, it's a work in progress)

And I've still got two pallets left! Plus some random bits and bobs.

Edit: removed some doxing info

Raised garden:

Kayak rack:

Work benches/storage:

(Don't judge my cluttered garage, that's why I built the benches, it's a work in progress)

And I've still got two pallets left! Plus some random bits and bobs.

Edit: removed some doxing info

Spoiler tag your answers in case others want to guess.

Long story short, I've been teaching myself a little bit of coding, trying to script kiddie patch openWRT's frankly ludicrous DFS handling. I did succeed there! At least enough for my needs.

But then I was bored at work, and I have an AP that I added to extend the Wi-Fi to the back corner of the shop (cinder block walls). So I decided to tinker with it.

Pointless, but fun! And educational!

Edit: AP is an EX6120 from Netgear. Basically e waste, especially it's stock firmware that requires an external account to configure 😵‍💫 I saved it from the trash. Plenty good enough for its purpose.

I've had several android smartwatches over the years, with varying levels of success and enjoyment.

Most recently I've had the pixel series, the pixel watch 1 was good until it got wet and died. I had a fitbit with color screen(forget which one) but it also suffered a watery death.

I have a pixel watch 2 that I used alongside a pine time for m 2 or 3 years, and honestly I really loved that combo. I wore the pixel watch on my days off, and the pine time to work, where it took a lot of abuse. But I loved it's week long battery life.

But the pine time always had little issues, heart rate not working consistently, weather not updating... Almost ever. But then sometimes it would? But then it would break again.

But the biggest problem was connectivity. Both my pixel watch 2, and pine time, started disconnecting randomly during the day. Eventually I stopped trusting that messages would actually show up on my watch. Eventually it was basically disconnected 100% of the time, and I was wearing a stupid little screen for no reason.

I reset the watches, I reset the phone, tried a different phone entirely. Checked all the battery settings etc. No dice. It would SEEM to work, but then randomly disconnect at some point during the day, never to return unless manually set.

But this pebble watch? Not only does it last a solid 5 days for me, but it does it with many of the features similar to pixel watch. And they all just work.

For the first time in forever, my watch stays connected all day, and my weather is updated, and messages come through, it's amazing.

No complaints from me, a very happy customer.

Tldr: meshcore is great. Rooms are buggy and disappointing. Flashing devices from Android would save at much time and effort on the go. Direct messages should automatically try flooding after the saved path fails, it's confusing for normies that it doesn't.

Post:

I started with meshtastic about 2 years ago, there was no activity in my area, and my friends were interested but never got onboard.

I recently moved, and my new location has a strong meshtastic presence. I initially was excited, and played with it for a couple of weeks, before becoming frustrated. Even with access to a strong network with many repeaters, it was basically impossible to hold a conversation with anyone more than 1 hop away.

I read about meshcore, and wanted to try it. I also had a camping trip coming up, a trip where I knew I'd have access to a tall hill that should cover a lot of beach and campsites.

Also, meshcore promised store and forward messaging, via rooms. Which to me is THE most appealing part of meshcore.

So I spun up a repeater and a room, and a couple companion devices.

Now disclaimer: I did put the room into repeat mode, to save on wasting an extra device, since I only have so meant to play with.

At home, it all worked perfectly. But once I got to the site, the problems started. The repeater was up almost 100ft relative to camp, but after a half mile full of trees, only the companions with high gain antennas could access it.

So I had to drive to a library to use their computer to flash a companion into a repeater 🤦‍♂️ Can we get flashing and programming from Android please?

But that worked, I strung that up about 15/20 feet into a tree at camp, companions had signal for at least a quarter mile in all directions.

Once that was working, I started testing the killer feature I wanted: rooms. But suddenly they weren't working anymore.

The room was hosted on the repeater on the hill, so it was one hop to get to it. But even the second room hosted on the camp repeater wasn't working properly.

I could have two companions logged into the same room, each sending messages that the other never ever got.

Then I'd fire up a third companion, and it would log into the room and download the messages from one of the companions but not the other, and then its own messages weren't seen by anyone else.

They just.. didn't work.

Direct messages worked well, and messages to the camp channel and public channel all worked perfectly. Heck we even got some tropo across the lake from Michigan into Wisconsin, 60 miles direct!

But the rooms were not working properly. Just failing silently, which is the worst failure mode.

We only had 4 companions going, middle of nowhere, so it's not like we were overloading it, this was the perfect use case.

The other problem we had, was the remembered routes didn't switch to flood when they failed.

So if I was at camp, texting my buddy directly, zero hop. But then I went to the beach and tried to 2 hop from the hill to the camp repeater, it would try 5 times zero hop, then fail to deliver, and quit. The path would change from "direct" to "flood", and if I manually resent the message, it would flood correctly and reach him, then change the path to "2 hops".

This is fine for me, I understand what's happening. But my friend is not techy, and struggled to grasp and remember what was happening and how it works and why it wasn't working. It was frustrating for them. I feel like this should happen automatically?

Ultimately we did end up using them a few times. I used them a lot for testing and probing and seeing where I could ping the repeaters, and how far the signal goes. The two times we really needed them, the relevant people either forgot their companion at camp (but still had their phone), or forgot to check it at all before deciding to send out a search party for me when I was late back to camp. I was like guys, check your phone. They checked, saw my message sitting there, and were like oh sorry 🤦‍♂️

I plan to try it again. I just really wish those rooms would've worked, and I don't understand why they didn't. Next time I'll have a dedicated repeater, and a dedicated room 🤷‍♂️ maybe room repeat mode just isn't ready for prime time. (Yes I know in a strong mesh, it's preferable to keep them separate).

But otherwise it was awesome, very cool technology. I made 1.8 miles contact, over 2 hops, just by setting up some repeaters. So very cool! And practical!

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/61977521

So I dug out a full cup of gravel and silt, along with a small foam ball, a penny, and a nail.

After flushing it with water to make sure it was good and clean, it flows great.

It had a threaded plug to block the cleanout, but it wasn't the right size, and besides the threads in the cast iron are all rusted away. So I filled it with a compression plug. Seems to be working well.

Before:

So I dug out a full cup of gravel and silt, along with a small foam ball, a penny, and a nail.

After flushing it with water to make sure it was good and clean, it flows great.

It had a threaded plug to block the cleanout, but it wasn't the right size, and besides the threads in the cast iron are all rusted away. So I filled it with a compression plug. Seems to be working well.

Before:

Inspired by a recent post, and my recent move, I'm looking to play with 6ghz.

I had been waiting for the "openwrt two", and I still kind of am, but I'm not holding my breath for that to arrive anytime soon.

My current network consists of two Google AC1304s flashed with openwrt, an 8 port managed switch for VLANs, and a 5 port dumb switch for the main LAN.

One ac1304 is the main router/firewall/DHCP/vlan etc, as well as Wi-Fi for the basement. The second one is just a dumb AP on the top floor. The main floor catches a bit of both and is probably good enough. And the switches handle all my actual routing, currently just gigabit. I hardwire everything I reasonably can. Internet is 500/500 fiber.

So basically my network is Wi-Fi 5, plenty fast for the devices that need it. I've had no plans to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 ever, I just don't need it. I definitely don't need 7 right now, but I figured eventually I should probably jump to it when it's stable. I don't think it's currently stable, or even common enough, to bother with. Not for the cost of upgrading everything, especially since Wi-Fi 7 openwrt routers barely exist.

But a comment on a post recently made a point that I had somehow never considered.

A dumb AP doesn't NEED to be openwrt, in order to function well on my network, or be secure.

So I started searching, but immediately hated everything I saw, and got overwhelmed.

TLDR

Basically what I'm looking for is a cheap WiFi 7 AP with 6ghz support that I can add to my network, on the main floor, to play with while I wait for Wi-Fi 7 to mature.

I don't want to have to create an account with some external company, just to change some settings though. As seems to be the issue with the inexpensive Netgear APs I've found.

So, does anyone know of any APs that fit that bill? I'd even go to Wi-Fi 6e if that's the only thing that exists with those requirements, really I just want to play with 6ghz to bide my time for better equipment.

Bonus question: would mixing Wi-Fi 5 and 6/7 APs into my same SSID/network be a bad idea, performance wise? I'm assuming not, because the channels would not be overlapping?

Was a bit chilly, and the wind that swept in at bedtime was unwelcome.

The second night we wised up and camped inland several hundred feet more. Practically no wind there, made for a much better camp. Lesson learned, fun had.

I'm looking for an electric car to drive back and forth to work. I cannot charge at work at this time. I can level 2 charge at the new house, definitely 3kw, probably 5kw, maybe 7kw.

We have two cars, I always let my SO have the better of the two. I drive a bucket of rust to work, and I'm fine with that. Happy even.

We used to have a Chevy volt, I liked it, my SO hated it. They prefer an SUV with AWD for our snowy winters. That's fair.

We moved slightly north recently, and while we used to have an equal commute, mine is now significantly longer than theirs.

It is 75 miles round trip, 26 miles at 70mph, the rest mostly 50-55mph.

Though I can and am willing to add 10 minutes to my drive to cut out those 26 miles taking side roads if I need to, I know high speeds are bad for electric economy.

My goal is to buy the cheapest electric car that will do the job, and not much more. My car sits unused 4 days a week.

I'm not opposed to something tiny bit nicer, we have shared events twice a week that would benefit from using electric over gas, about 50 miles round trip.

But we just spent a lot of money, so I'm fine going super cheap for something that just gets the job done.

I'd like to spend no more than $5000. I can stretch to $8000 without too much guff. And $10,000 if I really have to but I don't want to.

I know this is a horrible time to buy, but I swear I was pro electric before gas went insane.

Does such a car exist? I don't even know where to look.

Are old defunct leafs cheap? This is the type of jank I'm talking about haha.

Edit: to be clear, I do my own vehicle maintenance, that's why I always drive junkers. It's cheap and easy for me to keep them on the road. I know EVs are a bit different, but I bought my last volt for $2000 3 years ago because it was non functional, and I fixed it.

I'm not exactly looking to do that again, but that's also on the table if there's good documentation.

They were on all of them in the intersection, four sets

Pictured is my most recent victim, some free e-waste from work. It is now a mesh extension for my garage.

My main router is an old Google WiFi:

I'll upgrade eventually, but I'm not being restricted in any way at the moment so I'll save the money 🤷‍♂️

Update: Pretty sure we're gonna go with a RailPass and just rough it, to maximize how much we can see! We're young enough.

Plan is to leave Chicago in January, and spend about 2 weeks away from home. Ideally 11 days, but if needed, 18 is possible.

Initial thoughts are to take the California zephyr west at least as far as Sacramento. As west is the best direction to go, I've read.

After that it gets muddy.

We want to see some Sequoias, so an overnight stop somewhere in Sacramento or LA would be necessary I think.

We also want to see the Grand canyon, which seems doable on the southwest chief, but...

We've got family in NM, so it'd be nice to see them, the sunset limited gets us closest, but doesn't run daily and also isn't the sunset chief. I see there's a bus connection from Flagstaff to Tucson, maybe we could catch the sunset limited if we timed it out right? Seems scary, trying to time anything... I haven't looked closely at the time tables to see how tight that would be. Maybe we could rent a car? Or time it so we show up a day early for the sunset limited east bound?

Also we wanted to end up in new Orleans at some point, so that's another vote for the sunset limited.

As a stretch goal, we could take the crescent up to Connecticut, we have friends there, and then take one of the several trains that go there, back to Chicago. Lakeshore limited? This probably isn't going to happen and isn't important. I'd rather emphasize staying a night or two on each of our west coast stops, than trying to cram as much riding as possible in and get to the east coast.

Additionally, we're not opposed to going north on the coast starlight to Seattle and taking empire builder home, never been out that way, just not sure how much it has to offer in the winter. Especially compared to redwoods, maybe the canyon, and family.

Anywho these are the rough plans! Please let me know what everyone thinks!

Original post:

We've never been on a trip before, we booked a roomette to Tucson once before, but missed our train because an employee looked at our ticket and told us to sit and wait for him to call us. He never did and our train left, then he was very rude, convinced us to cancel our ticket (which was the wrong advice). It's a long story, needless to say, we got our money back, plus repayment for last minute flights (we needed to be in Tucson), plus this voucher for another trip.

The trip can be any time of the year next year, not February, March or April. Assuming summer is best?

The plan is to ride out west somewhere, California? And then rent a car to road trip home. It'll be the first and probably only time we can afford something like this, so we wanna make it count. It might make more sense to drive out and train back? But... I worry about missing the train... Again.. no no, we're leaving from Chicago.

I know some routes are better than others, and I know they change sometimes, what they're offering, what they used to offer, etc.

We'd like a roomette, and we wanna see the sights in one of those glass roof cars, and I know the food options vary too, so whatever the better of the food options would be ideal.

Bonus points if you have suggestions of things to check out on our way back east. We've never been out west before, besides Tuscon. Maybe see the Sequoias? Grand canyon? We like backpacking so the return trip will probably involve some car camping, or real camping, for the fun of it.

Thanks!

Go with me here. Routers are routers, and servers are servers. Some people mix and match things, but generally, ideally, this is how it goes. And I agree.

But the router I just set up, the Google WiFi, has 4gb storage, 512mb of ram, a quad core CPU at 800mhz, is easy to flash, and only costs $10-15 on eBay all day long.

If you used it as only a little computer, no routing.. Then..

If I wanted to say... Set up a tailscale node at my family's house. Why spend $45-80, or even $130(!) on a raspberry pi with an Ethernet port, when the Google WiFi works just as well if not better for that job?

Maybe a tiny matrix server? Tiny web hosting?

Or, for a less ideal solution, but still reasonable. What if I wanted to set up a remote backup node for my main server? If my needs were small enough, the Google WiFi would be much more economical, although you'd need to add a USB hub to break out the USB ports. And there would be limitations obviously.

Or getting really crazy, you could potentially squeeze one or two bigger services onto a router, just to see if it's possible.. Minecraft server?

My question is. What is the best device for this? The Google WiFi is dirt cheap at $10-15, I'm about to pull the trigger on a second one just to play with. But I wanted to see if you guys had any other suggestions?

I tried searching the toh for similar devices, but even restricting it down every way I can think of, I've still got over a hundred devices to look at.

Basically, I think older router hardware is an overlooked, cheaper alternative, to raspberry pis, for some scenarios.

I'm old school, the last router firmware I touched was ddwrt on a 54g. These days it seems openwrt is the way to go.

I've got an old Google WiFi that I just flashed over. I have a small managed switch in the mail. I want to play with VLANs. With only one lan port I'll need to do trunking.

I've watched the videos, read some docs, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Right now I'm stuck on the idea that my router model might not even support it? I can't find where I read that, but now I'm all turned around.

I'll play with it when the switch arrives, surely I'll figure it out eventually. but in the meantime, does anyone know if the Google WiFi router supports VLANs when flashed? Or is that a problem I made up?

Thanks!

Edit: update, VLANs up and running! Still need to tweak the isolation, but this is very cool tech.

Location of the tree is roughly the middle of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

Conditions were occasionally sandy, and I had shoes with netting on top for breathability.

They're wool. I held them over the fire every night, just close enough to get them hot enough to kill bacteria. But you can't replace soap and water.

How do through hikers do it?!

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/46601463

Swing your legs out one side, stand on stones. The other side? Stand in water 😅

Usually you wouldn't camp so close to water, but this was such a cool spot I couldn't help it. Plus it was on a fairly busy trail, in good weather, so.. 🤷‍♂️

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/46601463

Swing your legs out one side, stand on stones. The other side? Stand in water 😅

Usually you wouldn't camp so close to water, but this was such a cool spot I couldn't help it. Plus it was on a fairly busy trail, in good weather, so.. 🤷‍♂️