Station positions heard from my house. Note: when users send messages they don’t include a position. Positions are only transmitted every few hours. So just because they aren’t on the map doesn’t mean I can’t message them.

Here's a good explaination of how meshcore messages work. The first message pingpongs off all available repeaters. Each repeater adds its finger print to the message. Once the other guy receives the message, his station reverses the order of the fingerprints and sends an acknowledgment back along that route to let you know the message was received. When your station gets the ACK, now it knows the route also.

So, you want to purify water using household bleach?

Pick the Right Bleach: Grab some plain, unscented household bleach. Make sure it’s the basic kind with 5.25% to 6% sodium hypochlorite and no fancy scents or added cleaners.

Prep the Water: If your water looks more like milkshake than water, you’ll want to strain it through a cloth or let the gunk settle and scoop the clear stuff off the top.

Dosing It Right: For clear water, about 6 drops of bleach per gallon should do the trick. If it’s cloudy, double down with 16 drops per gallon.

Mix and Chill: Stir the bleach into the water and then let it sit for about 30 minutes. This gives it time to kill off any nasty bacteria and viruses hanging out in there.

Check the Smell: After the wait, if it smells like a swimming pool, let it sit uncovered for a bit longer to let some of that chlorine smell evaporate.

Just like that, you've got yourself some safe drinking water. Remember, bleach is great for zapping microbes but won't touch chemicals or metals.

Fabrication Layout Trick

You guys may remember the mobile shelter that I built a couple years ago. I built it on 4x4" sled runners so it could move with the cattle daily. You can see the video here of how I built it. 👇
https://youtu.be/tabPf5kooY4

Well its still working great, but we have a lot more cows now that want to share it than we did originally when I built it. 😆We've had another round of severe heat come through (pretty normal for August) so they are packing in under it and on the shaded side as the day progresses. Its so awesome to see a shelter that I just kind of thought up has survived being pulled from paddock to paddock for several years now and worked well for us.

https://youtu.be/psRS5vUR6as

ATAK released for meshcore. The last hurdle.

Message from middle of SC to Stone Mountain GA. 27 hops. A moment ago it was 22 hops.

and here are the stations I can exchange data with directly. My repeater is a on a 67ft tall tower with an 8dbi antenna. This is 160mW of radio powah. ... yes 0.16watts.

One of our group members just said they had a bunch of homeless set a fire under some electric transmission lines and the power company shut off that feeder to 5 zipcodes. Good thing he's got batteries and inverters.... he said he could run lights when no one else had them.

So this brings up another point. What happens when the SHTF for real and your neighbors see you are the one with lights on? You might as well BBQ in your front yard during lent. It's gunna attract hungry people.

So what happens when SHTF and lights are out for the long haul and you run in to town clean shaved and recently showered? Gunna get some attention. Attention you may not want.

Home Depot: a local German guy went to home depot for lumber. He got two carts and started sorting 2x4s. When he finally got what he needed, one of the home depot guys offered to help him push that 2nd cart to the front. The guy said I'm only getting these... those aren't worth buying. Home depot employee was angry and said he'd have to put them back on the rack.