Oddbean

OK, a buddy of mine has just thrown down the #Meshtastic gauntlet, possibly without realizing it. The challenge: transmit messages between central Illinois and northern Virginia, without any non-LoRa backhauls. His take is that Meshtastic is merely a proof-of-concept and something that can not be relied upon. He also said he doesn't see any real world use case. Maybe he's right, but either way, I want to blow his mind by getting a message to him. Even if we both need to be outside, I still think that'd change his mind about whether it can be useful. I might be able to get some tower space here in Illinois, but we're going to need some high points in places like Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Ohio and/or Virginia. Who is down to help me do this or provide evidence to prove that it is not possible? This has me all fired up now. I plan on joining the Meshtastic Discourse group to collaborate with people there and read up on what crazy rage tests people have done in my region of North America. Maybe the infrastructure is already partially in place? (I know it's not fully in place because I have done range testing where no mesh nodes received my transmission.) #radio #LoRa #LFG #GrowNostr

According to the article, that was dependent on the weather and the ocean. I'm aiming to go over land, including a small mountain range, in all weather. Still, it's encouraging to read that at least one end of the link was not way up high, but rather at sea level. In my local testing, elevation was very important. I saw HAM operators can go up to 10W of transmission power, but of course that would mean no encryption. ☹️

Hey Dr I’m not sure if I would be of help, however I am in Ohio. I have no practical knowledge of Meshtastic other than the recent Bitcoin Veterans setting up the Meshtastic nodes in the Helene disaster zone. I come from a first responder career and know a tiny bit about radios. Ham, LoRa and this new Meshtastic not so much except for what I’ve learned in the last week over YT and the BV podcast. A lot to take in. With that said, I’m interested in trying to help. I have no Lora hardware but I’m interested in learning. Not sure how this comes across but thought I’d give it a shot. Grace and peace

Sounds like you have the background to pick up LoRa/Meshtastic pretty quickly. I'm new myself, but willing to dive in head first. Might you happen to be able to get tower space on Campbell Hill to install a node? I'm looking up all the highest points between Illinois and the Washinton DC area to figure out where the ideal repeater locations would be.

In looking at the pics of that site, many radio/repeaters are installed there with video surveillance, etc. Not sure what would be involved regarding hardware and power source (solar), but thinking it wouldn’t be just mounting a small hardware thing in a tree. Trying to do that undetected would be a feat. It could be done just not familiar enough with the hardware and the mission.

I'm going to be trying to make a node (based on a youTube video) with a solar panel to run 24/7 operations. I might try it out with several radios (Raspberry Pi Pico based one and mabe a RAK) to see how they fare (better/worse range, battery life, etc.). I'll post back my notes here when I have test results. I was thinking that one should get permission before mounting something on a tower. As nostr:nprofile1qqsqt94cze77fkfxhgt9s2rfxmht6gjn96n8asf2jrq8szkkdhclexgprfmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumgd96xvmmjvdjjummwv5hszxnhwden5te0wfjkccte9emk2mrvdaexgetj9ehx2ap0qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uvturtf has demonstrated, a Meshtastic node can be helpful in an emergency, so getting permission might be possible. I want to get the solar & weatherproofing down first before trying to coordinate to get tower space.