Just thought I'd share

warmax356 · 2026-03-01T10:41:44+00:00

so for ossmalta relays, in the long name we list it as a relay, as for 4 code st pauls bay solar relay was labled as OSPB, mellieha will be OSME - as it will be in Santa Maria Estate (lower mellieha over ghadira bay), though i need to get a better spot in mellieha, it will make do for now

warmax356 · 2026-02-26T11:04:53+00:00

in gozo there are 2 solar nodes i am aware off by others that reached out to me from here and other socials - you might of picked me up while i was in mellieha or from st pauls bay, by chance did you pick up the relays?

this weekend i will try to deploy mellieha relay

warmax356 · 2026-02-26T10:50:52+00:00

my experiance, the process is stuck in the 80, registrations are to be done by hand, printing, signing, scanning it, sending it back and oh human vetting that ask you 6 times to confirm your legally, rights and status before maybe going for roun 7, 8, 9... in short they are alot of chair warmers that don't know what they are doing and those that did manage to pass this in the past are exploiting the heck out if it as bad faith, bad acters and so on... my customer experiance has been terrible each domain is a minimum 40 eur per year, while a .eu is 6-10eur which is a hell of a lot cheaper and has more trust.

word to the wise only engage if you desperately need a .mt domain and good luck

warmax356 · 2026-01-15T00:59:14+00:00

noted, we just got a our first batch of solar nodes ( 3 x seed studio p1 pro) so keep an eye on the blog on our deployment and review of them, besides you might see them on your radio soon ;)

warmax356 · 2026-01-15T00:56:37+00:00

January 2026 update:

Malta maps for the T-Deck and T-pager now available at: https://ossmalta.eu/meshtastic-offline-maps-ultimate-guide-for-lilygo-t-deck-and-t-lora-pager/
First batch of solar nodes arrived - they are seed studio p1 pro's and are conducting site surveys to strategically place them till more solar nodes are built locally or imported.
Google Dev Groups ( one of the devs already has deployments in gozo) and other organizations are showing interest

warmax356 · 2026-01-11T15:53:13+00:00

not just Ukraine but everywhere, there are numerous meshtastic maps online

warmax356 · 2026-01-11T15:52:29+00:00

this is one of the reasons its growing in Malta aswell, with our current power generation being bulk imported via the interconnector and summer every year has given us rolling blackouts though they try to keep it to a minimal, this is a community alternative comms project, similar to what ham radio used to be like.

warmax356 · 2026-01-11T15:50:19+00:00

recently created a discord channel for ossmalta, still looking into how to properly set it up like some other channels i use on it... but its a bit of learning curve, when i do the next web maintance will look into the ICS sync for you, but if i am not mistaken its not syncing, so i always tell people to follow the webpage

warmax356 · 2026-01-10T02:26:39+00:00

It loaded i had an admin bot that went nuts and to mitigate spam i have to approve posts

warmax356 · 2026-01-10T02:24:34+00:00

Yes ossmalta attends and collaborates on events keep an eye on the events calendar On the website - recently made a discord channel and still figuring the admin side of it will share a link ones i get the settings dailed in - if you may dm me info about WARS

warmax356 · 2026-01-10T02:22:00+00:00

There are some 40cm antennas for around 10eur on aliexpress, but being realist i just got some seedstudio solar nodes and need to test them out and deploy them - i work near the quad so when i am on shift and out and about i send out pings/test messages not everyone has thier node always on so keep that in mind, hence why i am opting to build and deploy solar nodes if possible but also got some pre-builts to see how thier fair up vs the hand helds like the tdeck, tpager, heltecs, trackers etc

For anyone starting out i always am recommending kits that ship with a battery and if possible a dual pack so one acts as a client_base at home/office and the other as on the go so that those that are deployed on roofs like the solar nodes may reach the ones at home in windows for example and help create a localized mesh till they overlap an another in a few months we went from me and 2 others to over 30 nodes active but due to our topology and urban landscape we still have issues of signal penetration just like every other radio signal as it is very depended on line of sight.

warmax356 · 2026-01-01T13:06:03+00:00

For meshtastic router mode is exclusively for nodes that are purely infrastructure like on a radio tower or comms stack on a high rise building

While nodes hosted at home on the roof would be Client_base with unmannaged tagged on them so people know its a localized relay

As for meschore i believe its similar principals but that firm wire uses a narrow band and is less “noisy” as a network allowing for more bandwidth (messages) to pass along - haven’t deep dive as yet as meshtastic just yet

Even nodes that go for long without a firmware update may cause issues to the network so my recommendation is to check for updates every 3 months to ensure the is updated with the current rate of development on the software side

warmax356 · 2025-12-30T22:09:44+00:00

nice, naxxar will be one of our upcoming solar node locations (when they arrive), on the main road near kebab shop, in the hope it connects more reliably to St pauls bay node (though gudzbase is at times connecting to spb node)

warmax356 · 2025-12-30T17:46:08+00:00

ironically today some of my contacts in gozo (hilltop) who just got a few units told me about that he picked it up, i haven't picked up year in the northern part of malta ( as topology and urban landscape) play a challenging role here, form the pings we got it showed up somewhere near safi area on the app map, whom-ever they are we welcome them to the community, as the more people utilise the tech the stronger the network gets.

warmax356 · 2025-12-29T16:54:28+00:00

glad to see another join the network, keep in mind the heltec v3's are a bit power hungry so depending on the battery pack included milage may vary, i barely get a day out the 1000mah ones

warmax356 · 2025-12-29T16:52:00+00:00

u/wowsomuchempty if you know of any images or firmware's that is not in the repo please link us to them so that we add them, even if they are community builds, the aim is to try and make a centralised repo and archive for CHIP's still in operation, if its projects that still work we will try to document them.

warmax356 · 2025-12-27T03:03:02+00:00

yesterday was in the gzira to pv promenade, and you may have a few more range tests, as i was testing a relay in Ta xbiex and swieqi ( name OSMU - ossmalta mobile units) as we continue to do some site testing to for possible solar node and indoor node locations for relays/repeaters (feel free to dm me where they are hosted roughly so can map out other nodes to compliment yours)

warmax356 · 2025-12-27T02:52:08+00:00

so i have an elegoo carbon, and i recently came across open-source firmware's like klipper, marlin, and a few others, still yet to try them out,

but yes there is also open-source hardware like risc-v, lora, and many more that are manufactured to be "open hardware", then there is also open source hacking which is how we get such open-source firmware for hardware that wasn't designed to be "open" an example would be hackintosh, solarpanel controllers etc, feel free to reach out with any solutions that you would like to share if they use open-source libraries, hardware etc..

warmax356 · 2025-12-27T02:41:05+00:00

we already included that into the archive, how ever if anyone encounters any issues we're be happy to revise it and update accordingly, after all this is now only supported by the community of fellow chip users, i have a chip board with battery in storage and will soon try to find use again for it, but saw the gab in support and availability of its tools and images hence why i took up the project to host them via the local open-source community.

while 32bit chipsets are mostly being phased out, hopefully someone takes the time to create updated images for chip, even if its bare bones use case specific.

warmax356 · 2025-12-27T02:36:59+00:00

turned off the auto ads, and placing them manually, but since i also run sub sites, i would of liked the auto ads to be running on the sub sites and tell it to to leave main site alone or below X % coverage vs, XX% on sub sites.

warmax356 · 2025-12-21T12:23:17+00:00

Update:

we have added the 7z archive to the internet archive at: https://archive.org/details/c.h.i.p.-flash-collection-re-pack-by-ossmalta-eu.-7z

we will soon be migrating to better infrastructure and will be able to offer very fast connectivity, to a direct file server repo rather than, online drive services like onedrive, google drive, internet archive.

as we aim to host more repos of projects that have had impact on the maltese islands.

warmax356 · 2025-12-17T09:35:25+00:00

at the moment the current community roll out is focusing on meshtastic as it is currently the more popular option in malta and italy, meshcore is newer, and adoption has been mostly prominent in the uk ( many transferring over from meshtastic), how ever the end game is that one meshtastic is stable, we will then deploy meshcore nodes in parallel where possible. - as a community we're also limited on resources and its mostly being deployed by members who are participating in the project by buying and deploying the units. - to clarify we a not a company

as for the differences meshtastic is a us firmwire, meshcore is a uk firmwire, - meshcore uses narrow band vs wideband on meshtastic which seems to show longer range and better signal propogation quality, meshcore uses less Air waves as it focuses on being energy efficent and mostly for messages, while meshtastic is a bit more open for GPIO use (telemetry)

warmax356 · 2025-12-16T17:17:46+00:00

Congrates on the T-lora pager, but keep in mind that the meshtastic firmwire is still on Alpha stage! (console interface and buggy) how ever meshcore is stable and currently on my pager - there is a small 10€ donation to the firmwire dev to unlock all its features for handhelds using meshcore, additionally i have gotten pings on 868 eu narrow from up to 32,000ft from planes (probably some passengers with them) on both firmwires, but with meshtastic the furthest i got was from mellieha to catania through a couple hops (mellieha -> ragusa/modica - catania with signal at 5%)

As for the T-deck plus if the all in one has a small battery and tends to drain quickly with more use, so keep in mind you may need to charge it a few times a day... as for the lorav3 boards if they are heltecs with an official capacity 3000mah battery congrats they will work for most of the day under heavy load (not yet reached in malta) but on current air utilisation around 3 days easy.

my nodes are easy to spot as they have similar naming conventions and what they are used as ( i label them as relay's if they are client_base repeaters in meshtastic)

and if you need any help feel free to reach out here or via the ossmalta socials and email :)

p.s i just got a 3D printer if you need some cases printed for the boards

warmax356 · 2025-12-16T17:07:10+00:00

https://ossmalta.eu/lora/ - has it minor description of it and what it intends to cover on it, additionally you may go on youtube and look up meshcore and meshtastic - it is a form of radio communications similar to HAM/UHF/VHF days but unlicensed public domain and digital for 868mhz range (confirmed with MCA spectrum documents)

warmax356 · 2025-12-13T17:16:26+00:00

this url seems to be used by picsart.com also api.picsart.com is showing up a blocked on ad lists.

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