I have 2 x RAK 1W kit (rak19007, rak3401, and rak13302) running meshtastic 2.7.18 (3401 specific). Both have a LiPo batteries (3000mAh on one and and 8,000mAh on the other) connected to the main board battery port and a rak unify 5v solar panel connected to the solar port (option a in the included paper Getting Started)
Each morning as the sun rises and solar charging is triggered, TX on both nodes goes from >6dBm to <-8dBm tested from a handheld node 20 ft away with clear line of site and this condition lasts for a few hours (presumably as the battery charges).
I would include pictures, but new users are prohibited from doing so.
Since it happen only as the sun rises and goes back normal at night.
There can be noise injected why charging. You can easily verify this by using an external charger and not solar.
Could there be an external noise source that is activated in the morning? Generally there are more noise in the morning where people are alive and active.
I don’t believe it’s external noise. If I perform a trace route when this is occurring using an e22-900m30s client node as the source, the SNR to the rak 1w is 6dBm and only the return path is in the negatives. I also temporarily replaced one of the rak 1w nodes with with a separate e22-900m30s and the SNR between the two ebytes is 6dBm bidirectionally.
I have a dfrobot 5v solar battery board that I’ll reconnect the solar and battery, with it feeding the the 13302 5v and will report back.
I switched one of them over to using that 3rd party mppt charging / battery management board and that feeds the rak13302 with 5v rather than the battery and solar directly connected to the rak19007. This morning, the SNR from the node with 3rd party solar / battery board was rock solid 6-7dB while the other one using onboard solar / battery continued the same dip in output (-15dB).
I think it’s just the onboard solar charging that caused, but it’s only been 1 day so I’ll let them run like this for the rest of the week. I appreciate your help.