Greg
Also known as TBRG — greg_ca on Discord
Hello, I'm Greg
I've been involved with the Ottawa mesh community since around June 2024, initially after discovering the Ottawa Meshtastic Discord and getting started with Meshtastic.
My background is in IT and electronics, and I operate The Board Repair Guy — hence the TBRG nickname. I'm located in Ashton, Ontario, just west of Ottawa.
The Board Repair Guy specializes in board-level electronics repair and microsoldering, including consumer electronics, computers, automotive modules and other electronic control boards. Needless to say, radio hardware and mesh networking fit pretty naturally into the collection of things I like to experiment with.
How did I discover MeshCore?
I started with Meshtastic in the summer of 2024 and spent the following 9–12 months experimenting with it around the Ottawa area.
While Meshtastic was a great introduction to LoRa mesh networking, we found that it didn't perform particularly well for what we were trying to build locally.
Once we discovered MeshCore, things changed very quickly. The performance and architecture were much better suited to what we wanted from an Ottawa-area mesh, and since then it has pretty much been full steam ahead.
I've been experimenting with nodes, antennas, repeater locations and infrastructure ever since.
My
Most repeater
My main infrastructureprominent repeater is Ashton_GrainBin, located in Ashton, Ontario.
The repeater is installed approximately 134' high on my brother's grain elevator, which provides an excellent location for coverage in the western Ottawa / Lanark County area.
Nodes
Most of my MeshCore node names begin with TBRG_, so if you see names such as:
-
TBRG_Wio -
TBRG_1W -
TBRG_...
...there's a pretty good chance it's one of mine.
Contact
On Discord you'll find me as greg_ca.
On the mesh, look for one of the TBRG_ nodes.
I'm usually happy to talk about MeshCore, electronics, repeaters, antennas, hardware troubleshooting, or anything involving taking electronic things apart and figuring out how they work.
You can also find me on the Ottawa Discord server.
**Discord:** [greg_ca](https://discord.com/users/658031670179397641)