This technology has appealed to the prepper in me. How to maintain communications with non-HAM friends and family in the event that communications go down.
The Meshtastic network is fairly straight forward, but it has been tough to explain to people because something happens when you talk about tech. Most people shut their brains off.
But if all they have to do is install an app on their phone, you might be able to get them to at least be a little prepared. You need to be able to charge your phone and a separate radio, but most preppers have ways to do that.
This is the Comms Channel video What Is Meshtastic? Off Grid Communication Explained in 3 minutes (Beginner Friendly)
Interesting information, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI've been using Meshtastic for quite a while. It's not a silver bullet, but it IS a very good tool in the box. I am prototyping a solar powered fast deployment system for use in a larger network. If you have questions, or want to check it out, I do have some posts about it on my substack.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely don't see it as a silver bullet.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer, I've never used it so I don't have direct knowledge, I'm just an old electronics tech and Ham who has a basic understanding of the principles.
First of all, it's in the UHF band, so it's line of sight communication. On the website, they talk about record distances of over 200 miles. The only way that's possible is antennas very high (like on mountaintops) with very little to cause interference between them (trees, buildings, etc). You're not going to get anywhere near that under anything less than ideal conditions.
In general, on the open ocean, standing at sea level, the horizon is about 3 miles away. On land, with hills, trees, buildings, etc, about the best line of sight range you can expect is 2 to 5 miles. If someone were to put a repeater on the tallest point of land around, like a mountaintop, you might get a circle of coverage of 20 miles or so, as long as you have a clear line of sight to the repeater. Out on the plains or in the desert, where there aren't trees and such to block signals, a repeater on a mountaintop could probably get you way farther than that so I can see some utility there.
In an urban environment, where there are innumerable buildings, trees, highway overpasses, etc to block your signals, you'd be lucky to get 2 miles.
So, for a system like that to provide consistent coverage, you'd have to have repeaters (or users adding to the mesh network) everywhere. If adaptation became virtually universal, and repeaters were installed on every cell tower and tall building and mountaintop, it could become a viable comms system.
As it is, it's a little known and little used system so the odds of there being a significant number of other users in a given area is pretty slim. It would probably be useful for a family, especially an extended family with several members living in relative proximity to each other.
My extended family lives in Norfolk, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Omaha, Indianapolis and South Bend. Not exactly line of sight ranges. My wife and I could use it for local comms, but we've got GMRS radios that do that quite well at ranges up to 2 miles...which is probably what we could expect to get from this system in town. Plus I'm a Ham and there are several UHF/VHF repeaters in the area. As long as the repeaters are running (a couple of them have solar/battery backups) With 8w handhelds we can reach each other pretty much anywhere in the area.
So, in short: I can see some utility in this system for families that live close enough together, communities with enough engagement to create a reasonably well covered mesh network, or for the future if there's wide enough adoption...especially for people who don't want to bother with getting a Ham or GMRS license.
For me...at some point I'll probably get a couple of the radios just to play with because I find this stuff interesting, but as a viable communication medium - I think Ham and GMRS are more practical at this point.
"for people who don't want to bother with getting a Ham or GMRS license."
DeleteThat is about 93.6% of the people I know, and nearly 100% of anyone under 25.
Meshtastic is not intended to be used as a replacement for radio systems. It is a tool that can be used for text messaging, asset tracking, and remote sensor packages. We are talking apples and oranges.
DeleteIt is light weight, power thrifty, designed to use alternative energy sources, fairly easy to setup, and costs a small percentage of a traditional radio setup.
I am building a network in my local area to connect homesteads and allow for communications between users in a VERY rural area . This is not theory, this is practical application.
Zendo:
DeleteAgreed. There are only about 750k licensed ham operators in the US, so about .2% of the population? And most of them are old farts like me. According to the FCC, there are only about half that number of GMRS licenses, but a good number of them are going to be Hams who also want to work in GMRS frequencies (again, like me)...but I'd bet there are a BUNCH of people with GMRS radios who never bothered with the license.
FRS is also a viable option, but the practical range is about half of what you get from GMRS...maybe a mile.
CB radios are also still a possibility, with similar ranges to GMRS, but you can use a base station with a tall tower to extend the range. The down side is there are no "privacy" codes to help screen out junk and in more populated areas there are a lot of idiots on CB radios that just like to transmit noise, music or gibberish to annoy other users, so I still think GMRS is the best option for most people.
RubberDuck:
I wasn't trying to denigrate the system, I think it's a great concept. I was just giving an honest appraisal of my thoughts on how useful it would be for emergency communication, which is what the original post was about.
My honest appraisal is that it would be useful under certain circumstances (such as in your examples) but has definite limitations as well. i.e. It isn't a silver bullet, as you said earlier.
I actually have a very close friend who has a personal application for it and I'm going to suggest he think about it. He's been trying to get a CB antenna up high enough in a tower to communicate with his kids in an emergency. They live in town about 20 miles away from his farm. I'm going to suggest this to him as an alternative. Plus, once he gets his tower up, he can suggest it to friends and acquaintances around him and possibly get a good community "emergency communication" network going. For a situation like that, I think it would be an excellent solution.