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

Rokland introduces our large profile 5.8 dBi 915 MHz 31" fiberglass antenna with N-male connector and U-bolt bracket mount. This measures 10" talle...

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

Resurrecting my mesh network networking project using #meshtastic. got my outdoor unit setup with a high gain antenna and solar charging. Will then be able to send telemetry and messages across the network without the need for the internet. Will also bridge to the internet using MQTT

Calm before the storm. You can really notice the petroleum smell in Buxton. Smells like El Portal in southern California. And Porto was right next to a Chevron plant. I hope they figure something out. #obx #hatteras #hatterasisland @nationalparkservice @capehatterasnps #outerbanks #theouterbanks

What a difference a day makes. Wind died down. Still in the 40s this morning, but very nice on the south facing beaches. Surf, still a bit sloppy, but cleaning up. Lots of moisture in the air making it a bit foggy. #obx #hatteras #hatterasisland #outerbanks #theouterbanks #obxnc #obxlife

7 days ago, the water in our creek (that feeds out to the Pamlico Sound) was well in the 60's. This latest NE blow has really chilled things down. Briefly today, it went below 50 degrees. Brrrrr. But, because the sound is so shallow, it can change temperatures quickly with a bit of sun and warm temperatures. Though, our creek is a bit sheltered, shadowed, and a little deeper, so it is normally a few degrees cooler than the main body of the Sound. #obx #theouterbanks #pamlicosound #weather #outerbanks #hatterasisland

our National weather service rain gauge shows we got 0.56" as of 7:30am yesterday. and another 2.37" as of 7:30am this morning. Our digital weather station shows we got 2.24" during this event. The wind is going to be blowing all through today and into tomorrow from the north. Temperatures drastically dropped into the low 40s. I refuse to wear long pants, I am in shorts until Christmas! #obx #outerbanks #weather #wxobx #wxnc

brian_k_wharton My official reading for the NWA. Heavy wind out of the South with rain at 0.56". Wind should shift from the north this afternoon and blow through Sunday. Be careful out there. #weather #hatterasisland #capehatteras #wx #wxnc

A shot of our backyard vertical #hydroponic towers from 7 years ago (the last season before we got the heck out of California). We had so much arugula and mustard greens. Managing PH was key to success for growing in CA -- rainwater was very acidic there. I am about to get things started here. We haven't been as successful growing outdoors in this salty and windy environment here on Hatteras Island, NC. But, we get so much more out per sq. foot than we do with just dirt. #verticalfarming #hydroponics #farming #gardening

We gave become an official weather observer for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Someone from the National Weather Service dropped off the rain gauge last week and installed it out in our back yard. We will get the thermometer sometime soon. But today was a big event, in the 4 days we have had this on the property, we got our first reading. 0.02 inches of drizzle accumulated 😁🌧️ I finally got to put a number in the system. #nws #nationalweatherservice #weather #wx #wxnc #ncwx #northcarolina

After a month of my temperature sensor, for our dock, being down, I finally rebuilt it. New board and new circuit. After a couple of hours of debugging, I couldn't get the sensor to work. Replaces the sensor, traced for shorts, and still no go. Finally, I looked at a resistor under normal light. Apparently, the third stripe on the resistor appeared red instead of the orange it was. As many of you probably would have pointed out to me, 47k ohm is very different than the 4.7k ohm it should have been. Dolt! Time to replace my 20 year old fluorescent bench lamp with something with truer colors! #IOT #electronics #sensors #environment

After so many days of wind, it is nice to have such a beautiful morning. Ramp 43 is flooded, so rucked lighthouse beach at first jetty. Light west wind. Air temp in upper 40s and water temp in low 50s. Not much surf. #capehatteras #hatterasisland #obx #outerbanks #theouterbanks #sunrise #ocean

The wind storm we had here on Hatteras Island caused some minor sound side flooding. The west wind pushes against the back of the island and brings in water with it. We had water levels 2' above normal. second time in 2024. It has been a while since we had this. We have had it happen 4 times in the last 6 years. During Hurricane Dorian, then again during a January storm in 2020. And then 2 times this year in the last few weeks.

Spent this morning putting together a 4X8X2' raised garden. The thing had 138 bolts to hold it together. I bought 2 others, but they will have to effing wait untill next week, it took Kate and me a couple of hours to get one together. And no matter how much math you put into it, you never have enough soil because of settling, etc. Well, at least it is too high for the dog to get into it to dig. #gardening #homesteading

Just because it says it is biodegradable, doesn't mean it gives a license to throw it on the ground. Much warmer in the woods than out in the open. #pollution #forrest #hike #dontpollute #nature

Warm and foggy morning. North wind backed down for a bit. Surf choppy. #hatteras #hatterasisland #capehatteras #capehatterasnps

Another day, another rainstorm. Strongish winds out of the south. Surf choppy #obx #hatteras #capehatteras #weather

Looks like facebook is down. Reports of folks getting logged out and cant reset passwords or log back in. Perhaps the beginning of the end for #bigtech look at that big spike of outages reported for FB. #facebook #fbsucks #facebooksucks #techbros #fb