While it looks like Meshtastic devs probably made at least some mistakes relating to that underlying complaint, I think that thread provides thorough evidence that banning that particular user was a reasonable choice.
He went off the rails as a reactionary move is how I see it. He got mad because his issue was deleted. I'm banned from the discord for a disagreement with one of the developers; but I've done code contributions to the project as well.
There's only so much bandwidth available so pick and choose what the firmware is good at. MeshCore went all in on messaging and tracing. Meshtastic is a more noisy protocol which is perfect for camping and hiking in small groups.
I can't wait for us to somehow figure out how to connect all the various mesh-networks in the world. MeshCore is a whole continent and ocean(s) away from say Freifunk or Guifi, but would be incredible if we could figure out how to interconnect between them, so we could all talk via the already built alt-infra. Maybe the FossaSat mentioned in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45806794) could finally be one option.
Can you recommend any outdoor node hardware that can provide services for both MeshCore and Meshtastic? Cost is not an issue, optimizing for “plug in and does All The Things.”
You'd need two radios, one antenna stacked on top of each other. Z offset of a minimum height of 1m/3'. In the X,Y offset of 0,0. You want high gain 8-10db antennas in this arrangement; you'd need more space between if you use lower gain antennas.
If you're looking for parts the Diamond BC920 is the best antenna. Station G2 with a $100 3-4mhz cavity filter for each frequency as well.
They're looking at ways to have regular nodes repeat on the network. Right now it's a one line change to enable it. Doing it well and smart is what's holding it back
If you need to communicate with people in your area and not be tracked; MeshCore software with LoRa hardware like the this https://lilygo.cc/en-ca/products/t-lora-pager is something to consider. Text only, completely offline
If you need to do this then start by figuring out why you need to do it, and adjust your approach too your threat model.
Because the most significant evidence we have lately is that in-person meetings or dead drops and other low tech means are how you avoid being tracked.
Turning on any sort of radio transmitter is just turning on a big flash light into the sky.
Turning on anything relatively uncommon is even worse: normal people have cellphones and use them. They don't use LoRa devices, there aren't a lot of LoRa devices and someone who only uses LoRa devices will stand out in any dataset.
> Because the most significant evidence we have lately is that in-person meetings or dead drops and other low tech means are how you avoid being tracked.
How many cameras did you just go by? did you have your cell phone on you? how many networks did it connect too? how many bluetooth broadcasts did it passively send out? Not being tracked and being in public are slowly becoming an untenable duo.
Yes!!! I've been wanting to make something like this for a long time. But unless the firmware is open source I wouldn't trust this for anything secure. But this looks like a dev kit so I can do whatever I want.
I’ve tried them on snowmobile trails. With the vegetation the range was about a mile.
Range can be 100+ miles though if you can establish line of sight. Depending on the scenario, a high elevation repeater could give several mobile devices pretty significant range.
Range is line of sight. If you can see it, even if 100 miles away, odds are it'll work. Seattle area has one of the better networks for MeshCore. Tacoma to Vancouver BC is the range for semi reliable messaging
Yes you can get decent reception inside buildings. It operates in the 915mhz band. Similar frequencies to old school pagers. Lora is an interesting RF protocol, it has really good properties for operating below the noise floor.
not really. The prohibition on encryption/obfuscation is how you keep abusers off the frequencies.
If you run into someone who is regularly
- using encryption, obfuscation
- failing to identify with a callsign
- using lots of bandwidth
- doing some sort of commercial activity.
then you get a group together, track them down, and report them to the FCC.
The thing people forget is that the primary goal of the ham system is to promote radio experience and experimentation. That is why there is such a wide variety of frequencies available.
Yes. Details are in the Christie's auction listing linked above. Scroll down to read the very interesting article about the Apple 1 in general and specifics about this particular machine.
