The topic of this essay is Meshtastic, an open source suite of programs designed to communicate using LoRa as the modulation type and mesh as the methodology.
Although it not Ham radio directly, it's components use Amateur shared frequencies within the ISM bands (433 & 915 MHz), making it open to all.
Ben W0AYE turned me on to this facet of the hobby at our last meeting with a couple of Blackberry like communicators that we texted back and forth with.
While this was using the technology at it's simplest form - simplex communication, adding one or more Meshtastic devices(s) creates a basic mesh network.
The is because unless explicitly told not to, all LoRa Meshtastic devices relay all packets up to 3 "hops" to all of the other users on the channel.
To that end, I purchased the $35 WisBlock basic hardware combination for LoRa and solar charging.
It's inside a weather tight enclosure with an external N connector jack for the Lora 915 MHz antenna and a weather tight power cable from the solar panel.
I now have a Meshtastic remote relay mounted up on my tower acting like a digital repeater.
The first thing I noticed is I have a "neighbor" using meshtastic to report weather. I'm still trying to figure out who Sunset Hillbilly is...
Reading below may explain why...
My other LoRa radio is called a T-Deck and it looks like a Blackberry from 20 yrs ago (same as Ben had to the meeting).
In a short drive test today it sent and acknowledged all four transmits which were simply text of where I was when it was sent.
I started at about a mile then 2 then 3.?
Today I tried sending a message from a town hall 4 miles distant and it was in the log when I got home. Yea!
The real point to this post is to gauge if there is interest to discuss this mode further and perhaps, provide a place for us share what we know.
At this point, almost anyone into Meshtastic knows more than I, so the stupid question doesn't exist.
73,
???????Mike N0QBH
N0QBH Mike Berg