ARDC Meshtastic Grant Update
I want to bring everyone up to date on the ARDC grant application we submitted for the Club’s Meshtastic emergency communications project.
ARDC has now completed its initial review of our approximately $6,000 request. They did not approve the application in its current form, but the response was more encouraging than a simple rejection.
They told us that the project aligns well with their overall goals of supporting amateur radio, but the reviewers raised two principal concerns.
The first involves our original design for combining licensed Part 97 amateur-radio nodes and unlicensed Part 15 nodes in the same routing structure. Their concern is that a Part 97 node could end up routinely forwarding traffic originating from an unlicensed Part 15 station.
Our current thinking is that this can be addressed cleanly by separating the two systems. At locations where we want both capabilities, we could use two independent radios: one operating under Part 15 and another configured separately for licensed Part 97 operation, with no routine automatic forwarding between the two networks.
I am not assuming that this completely satisfies ARDC’s concern. They specifically invited us to meet with them to discuss the reviewer feedback, and I have a 30-minute Zoom call scheduled for Friday, August 21. One of the main purposes of that call will be to make sure we understand exactly what regulatory issue they saw and whether the separated-network approach resolves it.
Their second concern was that they would like to see more confirmed host sites and support from served agencies.
We have already made progress on that front.
Mark Johnson (W5PTX), has signed a formal commitment allowing RRVARC to install two independent ThinkNode M6 units at his location in downtown Paris. That gives us a documented central host location.
We are also working on a supplemental letter from Lamar County Fire Marshal / Emergency Management Coordinator Quincy Blount. Quincy had already provided a strong letter supporting the project before the original grant deadline, and ARDC confirmed to me in writing that it had been added to our application. Since the reviewers nevertheless mentioned served-agency support, I intend to ask during Friday’s call whether that letter was considered and what additional level of agency participation they would like to see.
Haskell Maroney (K5HRM), is helping with that effort and plans to speak with Quincy. We hope to obtain language supporting placement of equipment at the new Lamar County Emergency Operations Center and, where appropriate, other County facilities that could help fill propagation gaps. That is still in progress, so I do not want to call the EOC a confirmed site yet.
The other important point is that the project itself has advanced quite a bit since the original application was submitted.
Members have bought equipment, put nodes on the air, conducted field testing, identified possible host locations, collected location information and worked on propagation modeling.
Among the member-hosted or member-supported locations now in the planning are:
-
- Matthew Murphy (KF5NRU), in Reno, where an M6 is already operating and being tested
- Dr. Randy Holland (N5DDS), in Powderly
- Cliff Leath (KI5OPP), in Detroit
- George Haneke (NV7Z), in Roxton
- Steven Lott Smith (KG5VK), with an M6 planned for a high-elevation installation
- Jerry Keisler (WA5KZA), with his tower near central Paris
- Our own location northwest of the Paris core
- The Atlas-area tower southwest of Paris as another potential infrastructure location
Those locations are useful not only for Lamar County coverage, but because they already extend the project outward in several directions. I still view this as a Red River Valley regional project, not simply a Paris project. What is firming up is that Paris/Lamar County appears to be the most practical place to establish and validate the initial infrastructure concentration, while the member locations around it help support outward expansion.
We have also identified and modeled a number of potential commercial, governmental and institutional sites around Paris. I do not think it makes sense to ask every one of those property owners for a formal commitment before we know whether the grant will be funded or whether actual field measurements show that a particular site is needed. The better approach is to establish the anchor network first, compare its real-world performance to our propagation model, and then approach the specific locations needed to close any remaining gaps.
ARDC has encouraged us to consider revising and resubmitting the proposal and has offered us additional time to do so.
So the immediate plan is:
-
- Have the feedback meeting Friday and get clear answers on the Part 97 issue and what they expect regarding sites and served agencies.
- Continue documenting the host locations and agency support we already have.
- Revise the network architecture as necessary based on ARDC’s feedback.
- Decide immediately after the meeting whether we have what we need to submit a materially stronger application.
Obviously, I would have preferred an approval on the first round. But we have been given specific concerns to address, an opportunity to discuss them directly with ARDC, and an invitation to resubmit.
More importantly, the project today is considerably more developed than it was when the original application went in.
I’ll update everyone again after Friday’s meeting.
73,
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)