I am curious as to the hardware/radio you are using to run your node. I sometimes hang out with the Seattle Wireless guys up here. I have a N800 and haven't had any trouble finding or connecting to nodes. I have found the N800's reception range, like the 770's to be quite good. I use Kismet for doing site surveys. Have you tried to see if your node is detected in Kismet, if not the official WiFi finder app?