All,
Club member Cliff Leath (KI5OPP), Kathy and I continued trading notes, texting and reading up on this stuff after I made this post. Cliff came up with some ideas and we all looked at hardware other than that in the previous post above, to include this ELECROW Outdoor Meshtastic Solar Node with GPS and nRF52840 – ThinkNode M6 Meshtastic Repeater with 6W Solar Panel and 7000mAh Battery, Communication Station for Off-Grid & Remote Areas ($120) (link here) and this LILYGO T-Deck Plus ESP32-S3 Single Board Computer 915Mhz LORA-89 GPS 2.8-inch Display Development Board External Antenna ($90) (link here). We also watched some videos such as this one Can Meshtastic Replace APRS? The Ultimate Showdown! (link here). The headline of the YouTube piece is farfetched, I would even go so far as to say it is hyperbolic in an attempt to drive site views rather than convey anything serious, because they compliment each other. One is not a substitute for the other. But, the piece does a nice job of giving you an overview and illustrates how they complement each other. Anyway, we also looked at existing Meshtastic infrastructure in the local area (there isn’t much) and here are some graphics:
As you can see, the Meshtastic network is in its infancy, the closest nodes are Trenton in far SW Fannin County and two in Commerce. But, to put that into perspective here is an APRS display of generally the same area:
If you want to further look at the maps for both the Meshtastic network (link here) and APRS (link here), here are links.
Club member Thomas Sorensen (AF5WO) had the first one in Lamar County. Really, the first one anywhere near the area. Then 5-10 years ago Kathy and I installed an APRS unit and we were the first in Fannin County. APRS was SPARSE until just the last few years. Mike Durbin (K5MJD) put one in south of Kathy and I, but now with his move to Lake Fork that one is gone. But the point is not long ago there was next to nothing and now today, as you can see, there is good coverage. With the Fannin County ARC (K5FRC) putting in APRS and RRVARC member Mel Toye (K5KEY) putting one up and RRVARC adding one to our Atlas site; we are no longer in an APRS donut hole. I kind of envision Meshtastic the same way.
Anyway, after spending some time investigating Meshtastic I started brainstorming with an Artificial Intelligence tool and got it to help me conceptualize what a Meshtastic network might do for us and the community. Right away I had two thoughts: 1) Having a robust Meshtastic network would add redundancy for our EmComm posture, and 2) I am always looking at ways to market our Club to potential sponsors and think this is yet another sales point.
I asked Ronnie Rumsey to chime in on this thread because he has some experience with Meshtastic networking already, but he and Mike Rice are preparing to go to Dayton Hamvention (link here) so it may be awhile before he can share his thoughts. However, I have developed enough detail on this that I think I will start a discussion with the other officers and see what they think about it. To me the obstacles are the overall cost to build out a robust network of the devices and then getting them sited…and I have some ideas on that. So, I have continued to develop some thoughts on the whole topic and, not wanting to get out over the tips of my skis, I’ll wait to post any more about that until I gage interest of the other leadership.
73
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)