Off Grid Texting! Why Meshtastic & What is it? Devices, Antennas, Setting Up, & What I've Learned

[@wa7jnjradio]

Thank you for watching, and fun to hear feedback from a few of you regarding Anker Power banks (primarily an issue with RAK since so efficient) and that someone has a device setup and ready for SOTA / POTA (ham mode and zero hops). Please see video description for any updates, or thanks for sharing you're learnings, comments, and questions below!

[@Kalendale]

Great presentation. Just to clarify a point: The Meshtastic distance record of 158 miles was done with stock out-of-the-box settings (LongFast) with the regular cheap omnidirectional antenna that comes with the Heltec. The only advantage was having line of sight between two points. Having RF line of sight is where LoRa excels. Also some Anker power banks can power low draw devices by double pressing the power button to put it in always-on mode.

[@wa7jnjradio]

Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify the distance record, and fun to know it was Heltec! I'm looking at setting up a device in ham mode for hiking to summits with "Summits on the Air", and there are a few other SOTA activators looking at as well. Hoping to make some longer "summit to summit" contacts with Meshtastic this summer, and also want to do with non-ham mode. Great info about Anker power banks with low power devices! I'll have to try that out and will update video description, and may follow-up with update video based on other learnings since this video.

[@AntonioPena1]

Thank you for sharing great overview, one question can keep my family isolated from others? Anyone can message you? How keep privacy, I know is encrypted but I won’t receive message from anyone

[@wa7jnjradio]

Thank you for comment and question! Short answer is that you can keep your family isolated from other, and when setting up devices for my wife and kids I won't include the public main channel. You can set up an encryption code that you only share with your family, and I've seen a new meshtastic software update will be making messaging even more secure in the future... Link attached is to the Comms Channel video about setting up channels, and I've watched a few times when thinking about how to setup for my family. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aIubkGB7i9ycsNksi=YIncLIsuSJCcyf6t This link is for channels on Meshtastic site, and AES 128 or AES 256 is encryption methodology (does sound like will be improving encryption in next update for privately communicating with another station that you don't have a shared private channel. meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/radio/channels/ Hope this helps! James

[@AntonioPena1]

@@wa7jnjradio awesome answer and support

[@Androctonus84]

Before anyone drops another dime on this, they had better get involved in stopping the FCC from selling off the 900MHz band: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mniwmGuirLdlosk I wanted to get started in this for awhile, and finally took the plunge, even just last week setting up a router for my neighborhood. Now it might all be money down the toilet if this goes through.