I started testing Meshtastic and Meshcore recently. I don’t really need them right now, but I like the idea of sending a message to someone else without relying on a mobile provider or the internet. It’s not a very expensive hobby and gives me a reason to go out to other areas, explore, see if the system works, etc.

I want to add some coverage at home as I don’t get signal from anyone else. While I can’t install an antenna outdoors, I can put something on my window and provide signal for a few hundred meters. Since I’m not taking these with me and power is always available, just a board and antenna is fine. I ended up buying two cheap Heltec V3 (two because I want to run a node on each mesh). For the case, I decided to copy an idea that I had seen online before: adapting the case it comes in to give it some protection and mount the antenna.

Here’s the thing, on the videos I’ve watched, sometimes the antenna is mounted on the side that has the hinge, sometimes people attempt to remove the sticker on the “front” of the case (which leaves glue behind), etc. Not always ideal. This is how I did it, with the help of a precision knife:

• The screen faces the bottom/rear of the case. No need to remove the sticker and clean the glue.
• The lid opens horizontally. It could also open vertically, with the latch at the top to prevent it from hitting the antenna.
• The antenna is close to the corner so there’s space in case I want to add something later on (e.g. GPS module). Don’t go too far to the corner as you want the antenna to be straight. I have mine on the opposite side of the USB-C port, just in case it causes some interference.
• The USB-C port is on the side (near the latch). I could have it at the bottom, but this allows me to leave it standing on a table, for example. In my case, that’s also the side where the cable with power comes from.
• I’m using the foam to keep things in place. I made a small cut to avoid bending the antenna connector/cable.

I know the practice is frown upon, but I did some vibe coding recently for the first time.

I don’t know how to code. I understand some basics, like the “if this do that, else do something else” or the concept of using a database to store and retrieve data, but when it comes to write code, I don’t know how to do it.

Even with this limitation, over the years I have done a few things PHP. It often involves many attempts and using existing code as a base, but it has been enough to create basic WordPress themes (like the one I’m currently using here) and add small features. I have a page that allows me to upload files when I want to share them online. And I’ve also been using bash scripts and crons to do tasks ranging from backups to other maintenance tasks.

With the exception of the WordPress themes, nothing is exposed to the internet and I’m also the only person using these tools, so I don’t have to worry about the code not being super secure or have to account for every edge case. That’s why I’m confident enough to do this.

Recently, I was looking at my upload page and I wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t have a dark theme, the code could handle name collisions, but not in a smart way, and file name sanitisation worked, but wasn’t perfect (e.g.: if a file name had two spaces, it would add two “_” or remove characters like “à” instead of converting them to “a”). It would be nice if I could improve it and since people have been using “AI”/LLMs to code, I decided to give it a try and learn more about it in the process.