u/Furlyfe_Redux

Ever since I put the Hustler HQ27 on my car, smaller birds have started landing on the coil. Makes sense, it IS one of the highest spots in the yard/driveway when I'm home.

So I finally got around to making a car repeater to use with my edc stealth node and when I go camping using another Rak19003 in an IP65 case. The solar panel is a 5V 2W panel that came in a 2 pack, and it's plenty capable of keeping the battery topped up. Since the Rak boards don't get warm in my experience, I figure some foam pipe insulation squishing around it would do the trick to hold the board in place and protect it, and so far it's working out great. The zip ties are there to help with keeping the panel from flexing with the wind as I drive since I don't trust the single bolt to hold it. The magnetic feet are plenty strong enough it's actually difficult to pull it off my roof, so I'm not worried about it flying off.

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I have it set to Client so I can bounce my edc stealth node off it since I'm rarely farther than half a mile from my car, and if I am, I have my larger mobile node in my bag that can reach it.

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I could have gone with a larger battery, and I do plan to upgrade to something larger like a 10,000mAh, but I already have a couple 3,000mAh so figured I'd save the cash for later. When I do, I plan to swap the USB over to a JST connection for the panel and toss a couple silica packs in just to be sure it stays bone dry in there

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Found this wallet today at a thrift store for a couple bucks and just had to have it!

Saw the idea of a node hidden in an On! can on YouTube and decided I wanted to make my own.

Since the lil coil antenna has a very solid SWR and fits in the smaller section, I figured I'd go with the biggest battery I can fit in the can with a Rak4631, which turns out to be a 102540 (10mm x 25mm x 40mm). I spliced a JST PH2 onto so I can still use the balanced charger that came with the battery since that uses a JST PH1.25.

Thought I'd share the two Heltec V3s I have since I've been enjoying the hobby.

The larger case has a 3000mAh battery in it, while the smaller has an 1100mAh battery. Both antennas I tuned myself since they were off by a good bit. ATM I mostly use the larger one since my job is in a small enough building I can mostly maintain BLE to it and the battery lasts longer, with the smaller being clipped to my bag as a backup.

I'm thinking about adding a bit of wire for counterpoise to the stock stubby antenna to get the SWR down further from about 2.1: to maybe 1.4:1, though with said wire on the inside of the case on the ground side of the coax (if nothing else cause I like messing with antennas). The larger antenna doesn't need it since while it came from factory far too long, it DOES have enough metal on the ground side to be an effective counterpoise (might buy a couple more just to get at the guts of one)

Next couple nodes I plan to make: a stealth node in like a nic pouch container (Rak node, probably), and a car node.