Hello I just built my first node, a heltech v4 and I can’t seem to send any messages on the primary channel and no dms are going through. It keeps saying waiting for acknowledgment and then failing and saying max retransmission reached. Does this point to a problem or just bad luck so far? Yes it has an antenna but it’s the stock one that came with it tucked inside the case I have a better one on the way. I’m posting here because the Meshtastic subs on Reddit suck
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Where are you trying to send to? Do you know if there are any nodes nearby? A heltec isn’t going to go very far indoors with the stock antenna.
We had a big meshtastic community in Tucson/Phoenix, but it sucked. You could barely get any messages through. A LOT of people have switched to Meshcore and the system is amazing. Meshtastic has it’s purpose (it’s good for telemetry) but if you actually want to get messages through, meshcore seems to work better. BUT… this all depends on what is in your area. If there is no node nearby, both are useless. So find out what is nearby first. Check out the MeshCore discord and Meshtastic Discord
I’m 20 miles south of Tucson and messages from flagstaff are being relayed down here.
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Also don’t mention Meshcore in the meshtastic discord. They are a little miffed everyone is abandoning them for meshcore and will ban you or at least delete your post. Just another reason to go Meshcore. lol.
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I’m trying to broadcast on the primary channel mainly and there are notes where I am currently where I live is pretty dead but the area where I work has quite a few active ones and I’ve been to some other towns
Definitely try to find people in your area online through the discord. Your area may use non-default settings.
With a small antenna like that you are going to need to be outside on a roof to get more than a mile or so.