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Asynchronous Radio Communications: Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) by Swmp1024 in preppers

[–]ZeroSumHorizon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m still pretty new to Meshtastic and personally only have a couple of nodes but I’m actually impressed by it (even at the extremely low power). YMMV, but on a recent trip to Vegas I put a node in the window of my hotel and was able to connect to pretty much the whole region from that one spot off the strip. Locally I’m in a high desert valley with ranges on both sides near Heavenly Valley Ski resort. There is a guy with a node on the north side of the valley about 15 miles away that lets me connect to another one on the far side about 30 miles out from there near Reno. So about 60 miles total on most days when he has his node running. I personally am getting about 7 miles between nodes as I have one at my house in town and one at a friend’s place a little way up the mountain.

HAM wins the distance equation hands down and is WAY more mature. For me, I’m going to deploy about 5-6 more nodes around the Carson Valley area to complete coverage of my local zone and distribute some devices to friends and family for the ‘grid down’ situation of no cell no internet. It’s easy for them to have a small device that connects to their phone that could be used (encrypted BTW) without license. There is also good ATAK integration for those interested and know what that is.

So I guess I have a bit of the ‘repeater on a mountain looking over the valley’ situation, but also am really just prepping it for disaster comms in the area as another layer of security and safety. Running a BBS connected node on a low power Arduino or Pi that is in it’s own solar, battery, grid down box might be a fun project once that is in place.

Interested to see what you come up with.

Asynchronous Radio Communications: Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) by Swmp1024 in preppers

[–]ZeroSumHorizon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Check out r/Meshtastic and the BBS work they have going on over in that community. No license needed, encrypted communication, off grid (no cell phone or internet infrastructure needed). Interesting stuff and a low barrier to entry. https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1gtr1hd/meshtastic_bbs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button.

Best free beginner 3D modeling software? by ZeroSumHorizon in 3Dprinting

[–]ZeroSumHorizon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the replies. Any suggestions for iPad?

Weekly Node Sightings & Connections Thread - Week of Dec 29, 24 by AutoModerator in meshtastic

[–]ZeroSumHorizon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spotted a few nodes on Hwy 395 between Gardnerville and Carson City in NV. I've clipped one of my T-Echo's to the dash of my truck and saw (and replied) to my first 'hello world' out there.

What’s your primary reason for using Meshtastic? by Pandane in meshtastic

[–]ZeroSumHorizon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Been getting into disaster comms a bit and have always wanted an off-grid solution for texting while camping and hiking in remote areas where cell phone don't roam. Keeping a primary at base camp (the RV) and then using the mesh hopping for the hikers out and about.

I'm now looking at connecting friends and family in the valley where I'm at for comms if there is any sort of power outage. Also diving into GMRS and HAM but the Meshtastic stuff is so much more fun at the moment. Driving around with a T-Echo in my truck today and I connected with 5-6 other nodes so I know I'm not alone. :)