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Comment by cyberax | Hacker News Reader

I have a small Meshtastic device, not quite button-sized but still tiny. The chip on it supports aGPS, so I can upload the almanac and prime it with the approximate location. I'm very familiar with this process, I wrote a small utility for my cell phone back in ~2010 after I screwed up its factory image by installing Cyanogen.

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Nice, I have a few mestastic widgets, but do want something small enough for a dog collar. That way my wife and I can carry a radio and keep one in the car so we have a good chance getting in range.

Sad that most of ham radio, which has similar APRS for tracking, doesn't do async or multi-hop.

I found this one when searching for something similar: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GF6QL9S9 - it should even be hackable.

I have not tested it, but it should be hackable. I have a couple of discrete RAK chips, and I've ordered a PCB with a trace antenna for them.

Looks nice for some uses, but pretty big for a dog collar, almost 3" on a side. I've some long/thin dev boards that I could pair with an 18650 that should be closer to 1".

I'm planning to use a small LiPo battery with a JST connector. The whole footprint should be slightly larger than 3x4x1 cm. Still a bit too large for a pocket device, but perfect for a collar.

Sounds great, best I found so far is the RAK19007 (30x60mm), then add a GPS (RAK12500). It will be kind of long (60mm + case) but not too wide (30mm + 3d printed case).

Or the Mesh Node T114 Development Board V2 (23mm wide).

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