Using nRF24L01 radios as part of a weather station

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Well I think I've found a suitable site for my next range-check.
This road is part of a road called Nine Mile Ride and is 940m in length.
The original road was built over 200 years ago (click the link below for details).

Nine Mile Ride

I reckon I could place the remote station at the vanishing-point (in the photo) and walk away from it holding the base station and see when I lose the signal. I promise to publish my results.

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I use the ground plane effect to improve ss with a number of my remote devices.
See this thread; https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/improving-rf-signal-strength-emonth-emontx/5318

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Just made a small modification to install a ground plane reflector (as per Paul-Reed's suggestion).

I've calculated the radius to be 1.23 inches at 2.4GHz and 1.18 inches at 2.5GHz, so I took an average of 1.2 inches and created a cardboard disc 2.4 inches diameter covered with cooking foil.

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... and connected it to ground I hope...

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Based on the posts in Paul's link, it is apparently not a necessity (learned this today). Wikipedia seems to support the claim:

In telecommunication, a ground plane is a flat or nearly flat horizontal conducting surface that serves as part of an antenna, to reflect the radio waves from the other antenna elements. The plane does not necessarily have to be connected to ground.

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OMG - this is going to kick-off another sub-thread like the baked bean tin discussion above (ha,ha,ha).

Maybe people could comment on... When bricklaying do you lay the bricks 'frog up or frog down' ???

As per @ristomatti suggestion, I've just ordered a set of these 'bad boys'. Range = 2100 metres !!!

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If this continues the forum will become independent from the internet and only be accessible by eaters of baked beans!

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I was thinking the same when reading the thread, but having recently purchased a NANO for about £3.50 and D1 Mini's for about £1.65, then probably cost.

I mentioned a few years ago on Arduino forums, why would anyone use an Arduino (whichever one) and then ADD a D1 Mini or other ESP8266 device to gain Wifi when (other than only 1 analogue input) ESP's are around 1/2 the price, have more memory, run faster and can program with the same (almost) code as an Arduino.

Would and ESP8266 (NodeMCU) or simial with an external antenna connection give you the range you require? You could even use a D1 mini 1/2 way as a repeater!
Just some ideas.

How's last years project Dave? Is it still running?

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Hmm, not entirely convinced those are genuine ones. The non-genuine ones (I've a couple) seem to work OK though I do, I think, have some issues with one.

I haven't checked for a long time, but certainly it used to be the case that ESP8266 devices didn't necessarily have the same I/O ports available.

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Hi Martin,
Good to hear from you again.
I think the reason I swapped the Nano for a Wemos D1 Mini, at the remote station, was that I knew how to put the Wemos into DeepSleep for say 15-mins - whereas I couldn't find details on how to do that for a Nano.

Although last year's weather station project is still running in my rear garden, what I wanted to do was increase the range of transmission so a sensor could be placed in one of the school's gardens. The current epidemic has brought everything to a stop at the IoT Club - doubt if I'll be back tutoring until the new year.

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It does get a bit tight for pins on the Wemos. Had to jiggle the pin-functions around as on the Base Station I needed SPI (for the radio) and I2C (for an OLED panel for diagnostics).

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