You are correct in that range is highly variable and hugely dependent on your conditions and situation. To be fair, I said "A good Meshtastic radio will send a message about 5 miles, assuming there are not too many trees or buildings in the way." -- We've seen, in the real world, Messages successfully traverse 110 miles in a single hop, from a T1000E. A router node on a hilltop can easily hit 60+ miles, especially when that's over open terrain. I'd also say that in a dense city, like San Francisco, I'd be shocked if you even got 2 miles - if there were buildings in the way. 900mhz is extremely susceptible to "stuff in the way". But I'd say claiming "5 miles on average" is a reasonable number with the caveat of "stuff". It's more reasonable than say the GMRS radios you buy on Amazon that claim a "range up to 36 miles" when you're lucky to get a couple miles across an open lake. This is the sort of detail I simply couldn't cover in a sub-8 minute video. But I appreciate you providing your own experiences so that those whom are interested, can see what others experience.
Yes. You can think of each Meshtastic node (radio) as a Walkie Talkie. Anyone who wants to chat, needs their own walkie talkie (Meshtastic radio). Just in this case, each one pairs to a phone so you can text instead of talk.
@gp37521 You are quite correct. However the only real option on the "all in one" vein in the Lilygo T-Deck. The existing interface on it is NOT fun, very slow and laggy and feature poor. There is a new UI "Coming Soon (TM)" however it's very much still in developer alpha. Last I checked every time you rebooted the T-Deck on the new UI, it lost all of your settings/memory. I would not recommend that to anyone beyond someone who wants to help develop the UI. It's clearly something on the roadmap for Meshtastic, but I think most of the focus is on better mobile apps, which is what 99% of the people want to use anyways.
Id love to see reticulum get some love. Can you do a video about it? Its much more robust, scalable, adaptable, and better bandwidth because of routing priority. Much higher potential for being a decentralized intranet to the same scale as the centralized internet. Ive heard its got better encryption but i have nothing concrete as to whether that's true or not
Sure! I'm happy to give it a shot. At first glance, I'd say Meshtastic and Reticulum serve different purposes, with Meshtastic not trying to be a replacement internet or internet-like access. It's certainly no shock that on the RF side Reticulum uses many of the same generic Lora devices that Meshtastic does - so they won't be significantly faster because the underlaying layer (Lora/RF) is the same. Though clearly the ability to use wifi hardware would be a ton faster (with less range). But, like I said, I'll give it a try when i have time and report back!
Of course, reliability is a matter of perspective. Is it as reliable as electricity in the USA? No. Is it as reliable as cell service? Well, that kinda depends if its a normal day or not. In a disaster scenario, even minor event like "power outage" cell phone service is often overloaded or unavailable (So unreliable). Is meshtastic as reliable as a walkie talkie? Well, fairly easy to argue that it's more reliable than a walkie. At least with Meshtastic it tells you if the message has been acknowledged by another party. If you don't see that ack, you know you aren't getting out to any other party. It's the sort of nuanced area that one cannot get into in a sub 8-minute video. But I'm open to suggestions, what would you say instead of "reliable"?
I've see that meshtastic IS encrypted. Or is syncing the only thing encrypted, so strangers don't get in your 'group?' I thought the FCC rule is nobody (but government) may send encrypted signals OR encrypted content? Can someone clarify? Thanks.
Correct, it is encrypted. There is two different types of encryption, the general "group" level as you said (Channels) and individual/direct messages. Different types of encryption for each. As for the FCC, they do have rules that prevent the use of encryption for amateur radio. However, Meshtastic is used in the unlicensed ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical). Provided you stick the allowed band, under the power limits set by the FCC then you can do anything you want (within the limits of good behavior). So... because the ISM band (at least in the USA) is shared with the Amateur radio 33cm band... you have an option. If you flip on the "Licensed Operator" mode in the firmware, it'll disable encryption... but allow you to broadcast at a much higher power. Because going above the standard power of Meshtastic puts you into Ham use, under their restrictions... which includes no encryption. TLDR: Yes encryption, yes it's legal. Yes there are FCC regulations on encryption, they just don't apply to the average Meshtastic user.
Thank you spoke English. I was listening to the data slayer and inBox although his topic wasn't about Mesh
That 5 miles part is a huge stretch, more like 1 - 2 miles, in a normal city area.
You are correct in that range is highly variable and hugely dependent on your conditions and situation.
To be fair, I said "A good Meshtastic radio will send a message about 5 miles, assuming there are not too many trees or buildings in the way." -- We've seen, in the real world, Messages successfully traverse 110 miles in a single hop, from a T1000E. A router node on a hilltop can easily hit 60+ miles, especially when that's over open terrain. I'd also say that in a dense city, like San Francisco, I'd be shocked if you even got 2 miles - if there were buildings in the way. 900mhz is extremely susceptible to "stuff in the way". But I'd say claiming "5 miles on average" is a reasonable number with the caveat of "stuff". It's more reasonable than say the GMRS radios you buy on Amazon that claim a "range up to 36 miles" when you're lucky to get a couple miles across an open lake.
This is the sort of detail I simply couldn't cover in a sub-8 minute video. But I appreciate you providing your own experiences so that those whom are interested, can see what others experience.
What all would I need (and about how much would it cost) to have to set this up at some random outdoor event, such as a holiday town gathering?
Less than $100 would get you a decent base station with a decent Omni direction external antenna.
You need a node per person, less than $100 each and you can get some for $30. The nodes will talk p2p, no need for a repeater / base station.
so each individual has to purchase a meshtastic attena then they can use the app on the phone to text via the meshtastic attena
Yes. You can think of each Meshtastic node (radio) as a Walkie Talkie. Anyone who wants to chat, needs their own walkie talkie (Meshtastic radio). Just in this case, each one pairs to a phone so you can text instead of talk.
There are also ones that don't need phones at all, you can text and do everything from them.
@gp37521 You are quite correct. However the only real option on the "all in one" vein in the Lilygo T-Deck. The existing interface on it is NOT fun, very slow and laggy and feature poor. There is a new UI "Coming Soon (TM)" however it's very much still in developer alpha. Last I checked every time you rebooted the T-Deck on the new UI, it lost all of your settings/memory. I would not recommend that to anyone beyond someone who wants to help develop the UI.
It's clearly something on the roadmap for Meshtastic, but I think most of the focus is on better mobile apps, which is what 99% of the people want to use anyways.
Id love to see reticulum get some love. Can you do a video about it? Its much more robust, scalable, adaptable, and better bandwidth because of routing priority. Much higher potential for being a decentralized intranet to the same scale as the centralized internet.
Ive heard its got better encryption but i have nothing concrete as to whether that's true or not
Sure! I'm happy to give it a shot. At first glance, I'd say Meshtastic and Reticulum serve different purposes, with Meshtastic not trying to be a replacement internet or internet-like access. It's certainly no shock that on the RF side Reticulum uses many of the same generic Lora devices that Meshtastic does - so they won't be significantly faster because the underlaying layer (Lora/RF) is the same. Though clearly the ability to use wifi hardware would be a ton faster (with less range). But, like I said, I'll give it a try when i have time and report back!
@obviateio can't wait 😁
I don't know about the reliable part.
Of course, reliability is a matter of perspective. Is it as reliable as electricity in the USA? No. Is it as reliable as cell service? Well, that kinda depends if its a normal day or not. In a disaster scenario, even minor event like "power outage" cell phone service is often overloaded or unavailable (So unreliable). Is meshtastic as reliable as a walkie talkie? Well, fairly easy to argue that it's more reliable than a walkie. At least with Meshtastic it tells you if the message has been acknowledged by another party. If you don't see that ack, you know you aren't getting out to any other party.
It's the sort of nuanced area that one cannot get into in a sub 8-minute video. But I'm open to suggestions, what would you say instead of "reliable"?
I've see that meshtastic IS encrypted. Or is syncing the only thing encrypted, so strangers don't get in your 'group?' I thought the FCC rule is nobody (but government) may send encrypted signals OR encrypted content? Can someone clarify? Thanks.
Thats absolutely not true everyone has the right to use encryption.
Correct, it is encrypted. There is two different types of encryption, the general "group" level as you said (Channels) and individual/direct messages. Different types of encryption for each.
As for the FCC, they do have rules that prevent the use of encryption for amateur radio. However, Meshtastic is used in the unlicensed ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical). Provided you stick the allowed band, under the power limits set by the FCC then you can do anything you want (within the limits of good behavior).
So... because the ISM band (at least in the USA) is shared with the Amateur radio 33cm band... you have an option. If you flip on the "Licensed Operator" mode in the firmware, it'll disable encryption... but allow you to broadcast at a much higher power. Because going above the standard power of Meshtastic puts you into Ham use, under their restrictions... which includes no encryption.
TLDR: Yes encryption, yes it's legal. Yes there are FCC regulations on encryption, they just don't apply to the average Meshtastic user.