What a rushed hack job this was... Built this little solar #meshtastic node to hang in a tree just now, while my son is napping. Now I need to figure oit how to get it up there. It's an RAK board, with 12w of solar panels I got used, cedar shims, zip ties, a battery I modified from a pair of heated socks, a drywall screw jar, and a CV boot from a 2008 Hyundai accent I had spare.

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I live about 30 km from the city, so the mesh is just myself, a friend, and a couple other local guys. This node will help relay across a forest that is between us all, and so far its great! I just installed it tonight. I'll upload my Blair witch style video hah. The closest city is Ottawa, which has a really impressive mesh, both mestastic and meshcore (everyone has been switching to meshcore because it seems to handle largecityy mesh's better). We are trying to get nodes setup high enough now to hopefully join that mesh soon.
I wanted to make it double as a functional birdhouse, but I rushed it, because I didn't have time and just wanted to get it done. Next one I'll try harder to make it a birdhouse that birds coupd actually use, and hide all the antennas and crap inside. I like the solar panels I found, because they are matte and don't look very out of place as a roof.
Aren't those gourd shaped birdhouses the ones that are usually much taller? Usually they're grouped together too. Could almost reserve one entire gourd for all the equipment. Might be able to mount the solar perpendicular 5 or 6ft up the pole as a so you can still clean it alas needed but also I think people do something like that to make it harder for snakes to climb? Idk just spit ballin.