I've been messing around with Meshtastic recently:

https://meshtastic.org/

It's been fun to explore. Lots of cheap hardware out there to get started with. Documentation slightly lacking but not terrible, and so far where the docs fall short I can turn to the code for answers. Good community.

Reserving comment on how the network / protocol might be improved. It's interesting to think about, but I knew little about the topic going in.

I've created a library for use by Synchronet JavaScript modules:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/meshtastic

Which opens the door to hooking a BBS up to this network and doing ... whatever. On the shoulders of that I've made the ugly beginnings of a service:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/synctastic

With the idea being that it would listen for certain messages and respond to them in some way. Boring (but working) proof of concept for this is an "echo" module for said service, which when triggered sends your text back at you.

Contemplating what actual use this might be put to and wondering if anyone has ideas. Message networking is on my mind, but with reservations; has the potential to be very slow and occupy too much time on the air.

Not strictly ham radio related, but not *not* ham related either, since there is a "licensed mode" you can use to participate in this network.

Anyhow, just thought I'd pop in and mention what I've been working on this past week and see what the DOVE-Net ham (and non-ham) brain trust has to say.

VE3XEC
echicken
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Re: Meshtastic
By: echicken to All on Mon Apr 22 2024 06:26 pm

> I've been messing around with Meshtastic recently:

For the longest time I've been meaning to play with Meshtastic and just never
got around to it. This sounds awesome and will be good motivation to try it
out. I just have an old WRT54G, but maybe I can put an antenna on it or
something. Not sure if there's anyone close enough to mesh with otherwise. Did
you have to use any kind of external antenna? And are you using Ubiquity or
something?

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Re: Meshtastic
By: phigan to echicken on Wed Apr 24 2024 22:19:47

ph> try it out. I just have an old WRT54G, but maybe I can put an antenna on
ph> it or something. Not sure if there's anyone close enough to mesh with

There are network maps on the web; you might get an idea of who's nearby, but they aren't comprehensive. There are stations near me that don't show up on these maps, but I can reach them over the air.

In North America, activity is concentrated on the 915 MHz ISM band. I imagine I could use other bands but would need to coordinate with someone else who was interested and near since I'm less likely to stumble on other stations there.

So it depends on where in the world you are and how densely populated your area is. The good news is that hardware is fairly cheap, so while you probably(?) won't be able to do much with the WRT54G it's not hard to get something that will work.

ph> otherwise. Did you have to use any kind of external antenna? And are you
ph> using Ubiquity or something?

I'm using a pair of Heltec Lora32 v3 devices, and they're both in my office in my basement with their stubby little stock spring antennas. This suits me fine for the moment since I'm developing stuff and not trying to get a signal out of my house. I'm going to move one to an upstairs window soon, though.

There's a list of supported hardware on the Meshtastic website, and for the most part you're just flashing one of their firmware builds onto your device.

echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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Re: Meshtastic
By: echicken to phigan on Thu Apr 25 2024 02:03 am

> There's a list of supported hardware on the Meshtastic website, and for the
> most part you're just flashing one of their firmware builds onto your device

Yeah I've noticed they've come up with a lot of new stuff! I have some Pico
clones that might be cool to use with those LoRa modules...

At a hamfest last weekend someone had a meshtastic setup going under a tent and
was actually using a WRT54G for one of the nodes, so it might still be
supported, but like you said, definitely won't get me connected to the 915mhz
network.. we'll see if there's anyone nearby that can be a gateway. I'd love to
get some of the other radio modules, but still lookin' for a joerb atm so can't
justify spending on random projects :).

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I know I'm a bit late to this conversation, but give MeshCom a look as well.
https://icssw.org/en/meshcom/
It may not have all the same features as Meshtastic, but it's the same sort of
idea and is designed with ham radio in mind.
I've also been playing around with Reticulum - https://reticulum.network/ which
is PHY agnostic (can be done over old packet!) and is a bit more fleshed out
than the other two.

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Re: Meshtastic
By: aether to echicken on Mon Apr 29 2024 05:47 am

> I know I'm a bit late to this conversation, but give MeshCom a look as well.

There's also broadband-hamnet.org which I may have been confusing with
Meshtastic at first :D.

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Re: Meshtastic
By: phigan to aether on Tue Apr 30 2024 16:38:41

ph> There's also broadband-hamnet.org which I may have been confusing with
ph> Meshtastic at first :D.

I had that suspicion but did not voice it.

I got the impression (from comments I read somewhere) that BBHN was defunct. Is it still operating? Looks like there hasn't been any news on their website for 8 years, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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> I got the impression (from comments I read somewhere) that BBHN was defunct.
> Is it still operating? Looks like there hasn't been any news on their website
> for 8 years, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

IIRC, BBHN was unofficially replaced with AREDN. There was/is a post somewhere
that said something along the lines of 'the BBHN developers have moved to
AREDN'.

BBHN from what I can tell is old and is probably defunct. The BBHN firmware is
only targeting the older WRT routers, whereas AREDN has support for more
devices that are newer. Haven't really looked into it a whole lot myself, since
the area I'm in has little to no desire or usage for WiFi. Meh, maybe I'll put
up an antenna and see what happens.

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