Meshtastic sounds great in concept but IMO it’s useless in most parts of the world due to it’s extreme low power.
If all your neighbours have one or there aren’t many buidings around blocking line of sight then meshtastic has great potential. Otherwise I would stuck be sending messages to myself.
Now, they made boards with more power that operated and crossed at several different frequency bands, specially shortwave, then meshtastic would be an incredibility powerful too. However illegal.
Now, they made boards with more power that operated and crossed at several different frequency bands, specially shortwave, then meshtastic would be an incredibility powerful too. However illegal.
Sounds like you should look into getting an amateur radio license!
Also, power isn’t really the issue. Power only helps you while sending, not while receiving. What you want is a good antenna which helps with both sending and receiving. For example, if you’re somewhere remote but you know there’s a city in a specific direction you could get a directional antenna like a yagi and point it that way.
I will never get a ham license, one day I will get a 100W out of band CB rig, but as a matter of principle I will never become a ham.
There are several reasons for it, reason number one is privacy, I would never say my legal name to strangers on the internet, for obvious safety reasons, why should I have to identify with a callsign when chatting over radio?
Reason number two is that you can lose your license just for “swearing”? Like what the fuckl? What censorship is this?
Reason number three, it’s illegal to use encryption on ham bands, so I can’t even have a private conversation over ham radio.
Reason number four, I understand that licensed hams don’t want unlicensed noobs jamming their frequencies, I understand the need to reserve some of the spectrum to people who actually understand that just because you can’t hear anything, doesn’t mean you’re not jamming, but there should be parts of the radio spectrum reserved for free personal use. Reduce ham bands by half for all that I care, but I should be able to just buy a radio and transmit how many watts I need on those free bands without needing authorization from the government.
Even if this is a very specific setup, I still think Meshstatic could be used as an external internet pretty much anywhere if there are enough nodes scattered around. Could be like a LAN network. Also, probably would be used by bad actors too.
Everything gets used by bad actors. Internet, cars, roads, kitchen knives, bicycles, hoodies, … You still use these because they’re handy and useful. If criminal acitivity means to not use things, we’d use very little. I wouldn’t think too much about it.
Meshtastic sounds great in concept but IMO it’s useless in most parts of the world due to it’s extreme low power.
If all your neighbours have one or there aren’t many buidings around blocking line of sight then meshtastic has great potential. Otherwise I would stuck be sending messages to myself.
Now, they made boards with more power that operated and crossed at several different frequency bands, specially shortwave, then meshtastic would be an incredibility powerful too. However illegal.
Sounds like you should look into getting an amateur radio license!
Also, power isn’t really the issue. Power only helps you while sending, not while receiving. What you want is a good antenna which helps with both sending and receiving. For example, if you’re somewhere remote but you know there’s a city in a specific direction you could get a directional antenna like a yagi and point it that way.
I will never get a ham license, one day I will get a 100W out of band CB rig, but as a matter of principle I will never become a ham.
There are several reasons for it, reason number one is privacy, I would never say my legal name to strangers on the internet, for obvious safety reasons, why should I have to identify with a callsign when chatting over radio?
Reason number two is that you can lose your license just for “swearing”? Like what the fuckl? What censorship is this?
Reason number three, it’s illegal to use encryption on ham bands, so I can’t even have a private conversation over ham radio.
Reason number four, I understand that licensed hams don’t want unlicensed noobs jamming their frequencies, I understand the need to reserve some of the spectrum to people who actually understand that just because you can’t hear anything, doesn’t mean you’re not jamming, but there should be parts of the radio spectrum reserved for free personal use. Reduce ham bands by half for all that I care, but I should be able to just buy a radio and transmit how many watts I need on those free bands without needing authorization from the government.
Antennas and location.
I can see one node on top of the tallest building around here and it allows me to connect to nodes 20-30km away.
The map does not say if a node is high.
They list the elevation.
Even if this is a very specific setup, I still think Meshstatic could be used as an external internet pretty much anywhere if there are enough nodes scattered around. Could be like a LAN network. Also, probably would be used by bad actors too.
It seems to send messages p2p, not provide broad web access.
Everything gets used by bad actors. Internet, cars, roads, kitchen knives, bicycles, hoodies, … You still use these because they’re handy and useful. If criminal acitivity means to not use things, we’d use very little. I wouldn’t think too much about it.