Meshtastic experiments

Meshtastic is a decentralized wireless off-grid mesh networking LoRa protocol. The main goal of the project is enabling low-power, long-range communication over ISM radio bands. It operates at broadcast power levels which do not require a license to use. It is designed around exchanging text messages and data in off-grid environments, with potential applications in IoT projects where a decentralized communication system is needed without existing infrastructure.
  

  Since a few weeks I'm experimenting with Meshtastic. Basically this is a mesh network build with small low power transceivers that are working in at the 868MHz ISM band (for Europe). Every radio in the network is transmitting again what they receive. You can buy these cheap small radios at Amazon or Ali express or similar webshops. Of course it works best if you got one on a high point in the open air. Meshtastic is experimental. It works but not really reliable. There is also a limit to the distance you can reach. So you need a lot of nodes te let the mesh network grow and work. It is the hype at this moment and if you like some technical challenges and tinkering this is a lot of fun. For more info you can find a lot on the internet including a lot of youtube videos about this topic. The fun is that you don't need any license to operate a Meshtastic node. So you will encounter people that are not licensed radio operators but just like to tinker with this. I know people are experimenting with BBS like software/programming. And some have integrated Meshtastic with their Home Assistant system.

PE4BAS solar node

  Well, a few weeks ago I thought of stepping into this Meshtastic hype. So I bought 2 cheap Heltec Lora32 V3 devices so I could test things. I decided to make a node at my job and one at home or mobile. I soon discovered the whole node could connect to the internet. Have tried it and seen it but that's not my thing. I disconnected it from the internet again so everything purely works on-air. Soon I saw a familiar call on one of the maps, it was PE9DX Johan. He has a Meshtastic node in his car and because of his job, and drives through the province. So I contacted Johan for more info and he submitted me to a Meshtastic app group with lots of people that experiment with it. It is fun and I discovered that there are a lot of amateurradio stations that experiment with Meshtastic as well. Unfortunately there is not much activity in my neighbourhood so I decided to build a solar node and put it on a mast to extend my range. But although I received some further away stations I still couldn't get my signal be heard.

  Luckily I was able to have a nice chat via Meshtastic with someone in my area. But still, we both couldn't connect to the rest of the mesh. While thinking about it I came up with two solutions. The first one was to install a directional antenna. The second one was to relocate the solar node. I chose the second option and installed it now on top of the flagpole in front of the house. The advantage is that it really has free sight to the closest nodes in the mesh. And it worked. I can finally send messages to the provincial mesh network. My node location finally appears on the map, which is not the exact location of course. But good enough to get the idea and location for others. Unfortunately this node is only working when the sun shines. The battery cannot be charged without sun. It's the time of the year. So I might think about another solution for the time being. Best option would be a few more nodes in the neighbourhood. We'll see how things will turn out in the future.

Interesting links:

Official site:

https://meshtastic.org/

Dutch site: 

https://www.meshnet.nl/

Regional site:

https://tovvel.nl

Site planner:

https://site.meshtastic.org/

Range of my device. It is very local. Actually it is a miracle that we can just reach other Meshtastic nodes. The nearest node connected to the provincial mesh is in Appingedam. So the ranges will just overlap each other.

Be warned, this is a little addictive. Have fun!