Meshtastic Field Test 

Yes, as long as you respect the license-exempt conditions.

@@G8YTZ the mindset of respecting licensing during a doomsday scenario will be the impetus for the doomsday scenario

True enough.

I have about 60 acres in Central Oregon where we have a two homes at opposite ends as well as a shop about in the middle between the two. I'm planning on setting up my own little communication system so my parents that live at one house and I can communicate with me at the other house or the shop, basically we can communicate wherever we are on the property that we don't get cell coverage at. Excited to see how it works

@@mhrepoman called radios. way more reliable than this

Thanks for that! You've just earned me brownie points :-) I'll show her your comment. She and my daughter and step-daughter all took the Foundation Radio Amateur License to better understand me!

Yes, she will always help out with things like this. She also has an amateur foundation license.

The 433MHz version should perform nearly as well, but in London it is a far more congested band. As far as antennas go you need to stay within the law, but a small 1/4 wave ground plane should be suitable. If you have an amateur license then the main challenge will be to ensure none of your traffic is encrypted.

could do that but don't need second phone for a node

for family camping you need a collar version for all the kids and grandpa, I heard there's a map app for this that shows where everyone is on the map for your private group

Yes, running as a stand-alone node.

Or in the license exempt 433.9MHz allocation, but the 430MHz versions can operate anywhere within the Amateur 70cm band (430-440MHz) according to the license conditions if you have an Amateur license (which I do).

@@G8YTZ I know what can be done in the 70cms band being licensed myself but there seem to be a lot of people using the 868MHz band as it it were an open 'experimenters' band when in fact only type approved equipment can be used? Mike G8TIC

@@G8TIC Sure, as far as I am aware the TT-Beam module is compliant with a compliant antenna, but the 443MHZ version is easily configured for any part of the 70cm band for the likes of us.

@@G8YTZ The RF module might be compliant with UKCA/RED but the whole product still requires EMC approval along with all the other relevant safety standards like Low Voltage Directive and various standards for use of LiPo batteries, etc. Remember that the compliance regime covers both (a) "placing on the market" and/or (b) "taking in to use" - this effectively prohibits experimenters outside ham radio.

@@G8TIC I think Ofcom are too busy with their broadcast code and hypothetical EMC risks to worry about enforcing activities in license exempt bands. They could turn their attention to organisations using the PMR bands for broadcast services.

there are three in this video, one in loft, one at pub and bus and third with wifey

Yes, I can confirm the mesh works.

To take it down you'd have to either ensure that no node can contact another node (because these nodes come with routing software which will re-route in the event that one goes offline) or someone could jam the entire frequency (but if you're at the point where someone's that pissed off there's not much you can do). And yes they can work without internet or cell service, which is why they're incredible.

It's hard to do.... As the person above stated.... It has many capabilities on how it works without modern things(cell/net/etc, it has the abilities in a way to kind of set up a type of WiFi net if the internet actually crashed. If there were a world collapse and there were enough mesh networks around, it could connect people in counties/cities/states/really just depends how many nodes were out there ..... It could connect people like we connect to our WiFi networks or hotspots. We could chat, get updates and the software could be updated in so many ways. It's constantly being improved, evolving and the concept of how it works is so very simple and kinda old actually... mixing the old with the new and it's really producing some awesome results!

The army unwarehouse the wobblers. or They have a swarm of mini drones spamming radio (mini flying wobblers) and easy track down any nodes with triagulation and and exploding drone as big as a bird.

Yes, you can choose a better quality antenna, but be aware of any ERP and antenna height limits in your country for unlicensed spectrum. Depends also what frequency you are using and the type of coverage you want (link or omnidirectional) . These devices can also be used in licensed spectrum.

It seems not, at least from my experiments

@MohawkInBelgium I've only run some basic tests fro home. The main repeater site will be at the same location as the GB3JV TV repeater. The antenna is a small omni designed for LoRa applications and it will be mounted on the exiting antenna mast, but at a lower level. The station PC is a small Intel Atom machine and there is a small Cisco Meraki VPN router there, the Meshtastic device will be powered from one of the PC's USB ports, so this will give me access to the device for flashing new code etc. I'll get it installed in the next week and I'm comfortable it will serve parts of the BR1, BR2, BR3, BR5m BR6 & BR7 Postcodes as the site is reasonable high. The 3.4GHz DVB-S can easily be received on Reigate Hill with just a C-Band LNB and Sat Finder (no dish), but the ERP here is 150W.

Hi Steve - it looks like he's using a TTGO T-Beam(ESP32 based) as currently ran by the Meshtastic team. Check out this video from Andreas Spiess: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TY6m6fS8bxU.html it details what hardware it uses, a quick rundown on the ins and outs of the concept and where it is headed in the future. Right now the boards are ESP32 based, but this may change in the future as there are options available that are even better optimized for this use case. keep an eye out on meshtastic.org for the lastest news!

I ordered my ttgo equipment from aliexpress

GPS location is a standard feature that this can handle.

4 in my case, the minimum is 2

G8YTZ and msgs pass though all? Real mesh?

Maxim Mashkin Yes, full Mesh

As with any radio network, not that difficult. However I would suggest that you firstly familiarise yourself with the 1984 Telecommunications. Act and subsequent updates as deliberately interfering with a telecommunications system is a very serious criminal offence with massive fines and the possibility of imprisonment. www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/12/contents

See IR2030 for the regulations and technical specifications.

No. To send even a very small picture it would take hours over Lora

@@holetoanotheruniverse4690 back to the old BBS speed days.

You will: 1. Need to be within range of another user or "node" 2. Be using the same frequency band (868MHz, 433.9MHz etc.) 3. Be a member of the same group as other users (a bit like a What's App group) I have set up a "relay" node in Petts Wood, Kent that serves a few miles of radius, shortly the node will be moved to an even better site.

@@G8YTZ Hello, I have the 0.7 version with the mechanical switch. I uploaded now the latest alpha version on both devices (me and my wife) and it's working. I am on the default channel #-B. I will take a walk later up to a small hill hoping to see someone else around. Should I remain on the default channel... My location is Germany near Aschaffenburg, thank you and 73! DE1CTL 🙂

I'm going to make some when i get funds.

Alan I think is a great project for all amateurs and also people who are at foundation or pre-foundation level who want to experiment. I'll be putting a node up at the GB3JV repeater site which should serve to Bromley South, Petts Wood, Orpington and Bickley as a repeater node. Its already operational from my house. I went for 865.2MHz as the band is clear there. 433 MHz is too crowded and might interfere with reception of 70cm.

@John Smith Well worth doing John.

The point was to see how far it could go out of the box, but my permanent repeater installations now use a chimney mounted 8dBi co-linear.