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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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How close do you need to be to another node to get it to work?
I should download classic wow servers game and addons for long term storage in case of WW3 π€ and wikipedia too
wow before wiki.. priorities.
This tech would be great if we had high power nodes all across the globe. But we do not. Maybe a cool idea could be encrypted data over FM radio. The radio stations already exist and are a dying business. Nonprofits could buy up radio stations and rebroadcast data broadly and only those with the encryption keys could decrypt. Cut the ISP out entirely. Like the difference between a local call and a long distance call.
Meshtastic communication would prioritize local hops where they are available and then where there are spans of area without nodes, they could hop across radio broadcasts.
Primary issue would be speed. Next to no bandwidth on a signal like that. Kbps not Mbps. Perhaps an incentive for much better compression as well.
Packet over radio does exist, and it's sloooooooooooooow and there's tons of loss. Imagine the first modems over phone lines, then slow it down more.
Legally, in the US, it can't be encrypted, either. A single geostationary satellite would be faster, especially if latency wasn't an issue.
I don't think you're going to be downloading a linux distro over this system. It's probably just going to be text and the most basic data,
That's what the internet was, at first
Yep, but what we had access to was far, far different than what we see today. I wouldn't have a problem with basic features like FTP, telnet, newsgroups or whatever, but the content will be limited. Gonna be back to dialup speeds.
That's what the last bit of my comment was about. Compression would need significant improvement before it were usable for most things people use the internet for.
I'm not sure compression would solve the issue I mentioned - this would be probably more akin to using Napster to DL a song in 2001 via dialup, or trying to get an image off a newsgroup at best. I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, just very limited. Like I said, you're not getting a full distro this way.
For anyone reading this currently, it appears that regulation bans any form of encryption over HAM radio broadcasts. So I guess that's one reason this won't work.
It's also slow AF. It's potentially faster to have someone read you text than get it by packet over radio.
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So, I setup meshtastic.
Put an antenna on my roof.
Have a decent number of mesh radios. Put one in each car in relay mode.
Setup a locally run LLM and made an interface to it.
Working on setting up a BBS.
I'm in the high density suburbs, I can, when the weather is just right, reach a single node that doesn't seem to be able to reach any other nodes.
If I go on a drive, I can see 5-10 nodes.
Adoption in the mid-Atlantic US is just so damn low, it's not really usable.
We need some antennas up high, but there aren't any reasonable options around me.
In my area, some people put small solar nodes on top of high buildings (office, university, and apartment). The node on my roof can directly communicate with one of these nodes ~20km away. Pretty crazy tor something that can run indefinitely on a 18650 battery and small solar panel. I've heard some people just place "guerilla nodes" to extend coverage.
So, I have rolling hills, but every ideal spot has a cell phone mast, I'm thinking they'd notice. There are some power pylons, I think they'd notice as well. Either one of those would probably be a felony.
None of the buildings are tall enough, it's US suburbia. I have a drone, i could probably airdrop a small solar node on a roof.
There's a really large water tower a couple miles away, not LOS, but it would be amazing to help the cause. But again, I don't think that would go over well and i'm not fond enough of heights to install it.
Tree?
A tree would be neat, how the heck do you get solar to it though?
I need do some experiments with my drone and see if I can get LOS to somewhere useful. The development I'm in has a hill in the way and no trees. I don't really want to try to sneak it on my neighbor's roof.
There's a 5-story apt building, not to far, but i'm not sure it has RLOS to the school and it has no service areas on top, all tin roofing.
There's a 3-story hotel that has the right kind of roof layout, but it's way out of RLOS from me.
Could you ask your neighbor?
If you had convenient trees you pick a pine tree that is bare that hasn't been outcompeted by other trees. It doesn't work as well with decidous forests.
Ahh damn, yeah, the only pines we get here are hand-planted... good info though, thank you!
Meshcore π you could see if thereβs more density of MC around you.
There are 4 in my metropolitan area, and I don't have line of sight to any of them :(
There are about 30 meshtastic in the same area, but most of them are out of range to each other.
I even stood one up at work on the other side of town and mqtt'd them together.
edit: a'ight I put it on a t114. can't see anything from the house, track practice is 25mi away, lets see if there are any quiet core nodes out there.
edit: edit: Nothing at all. Which is a fing shame, the client is way nicer, it's better on battery. It's better on battery on the t114. The map is faster. I think it's probably a better product since you can kind of emulate the client/router setup and it can work like meshtastic. Maybe I'll leave my of my v3's running on it in the attic with a modest antenna upgrade.
So much of our infrastructure uses the internet now that if it goes down I wouldn't be shocked if electric grids, healthcare, shopping, public transport, etc also shit the bed.
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The internet will get back up if it goes down. It is very decentralized. Sea cables and DNS is where most of the centralization occurs, and DNS going down is not at all the end of the internet. How man sea cables have to be broken at once for the internet to break, I'm not entirely sure.
Meshtastic is a cool thing and it is very useful, internet up or down.
That won't help for situations where a government shuts down access to the internet.
How resistant would this be to jamming? Iran managed to black out Starlink.
And how trackable is it? Not sure how many people would be prepared to run one of these boxes if the Revolutionary Guard are going to come knocking.
It's pretty easy to jam as it's just radio waves. Increase the noise on the channel and the chirps of your msg don't get heard. That said there are some options to vary the channel as a group, and jamming a broad and robust mesh completely vs an area of nodes is a bit harder.
Trackable as in traceable? You mean finding your node location? By default not overly difficult but again, can be set up to make it hard to find you.
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Riots fix that, not meshtastic
Riots are better coordinated when people can communicate wirelessly
A government can shut down a riot of 10,000
It struggles with 10 1,000 person riots.
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Every year I see more on the map. Have a solar node, good fun.
Ever useful? I doubt it, HAM would dominate in a collapse.
In a true emergency? Yes, HAM is the way to go and I need to get around to buying one of those super sketchy Baofengs. In theory you can configure them to use without a license (which is also on the todo list) but it is super easy to tick into the licensed use. How much people will care will mostly depend on whether your local HAM folk are narcs. But, regardless, all bets are off in a true emergency and Baofengs are dirt cheap.
But in a "the internet is out" situation? Or even a "please evacuate in a calm and orderly fashion" for a wildfire or a bad hurricane? That is where meshtastic (et al) shine and it is well worth convincing friends to pick up a t-deck or whatever. Excellent for the "is it out for everyone or just me?" checks. Also useful for letting people know which field can see a cell tower a county or two over for emergency communication or to even coordinate whether you are all gonna head North or South to hang out for (hopefully just) a few days.
And anyone thinking of using any of that for stuff the government don't want you to: You are an idiot and you need to learn about how insecure all of those are.
No wonder they're insecure with you calling them idiots all the time.
π«£
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Queue IT Crowd episode...
I'll say what I just said on a similar thread: if the internet goes down tomorrow, mesh will mean very little compared to ham radio.
Any quality transceiver built in the last 100 years will be more useful. It is purely about how many exist, how long they last, and their requirements for use (which are effectively, power and antenna).
Yes, there is a license that you need in non-emergency situations. It doesn't change much anything in emergency situations, and it certainly doesn't affect the fact that there are already millions of radios out there.
I certainly wouldn't throw away a mesh if the world was ending -- I'd set it on the desk while finding contacts on HF (=world band) using a ham radio. My chances of contact there are at least an order of magnitude better.
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I've not been recycling my tin cans and I have a whole shitload of string. Happy to share.
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If this is something I can setup with no need of complex licenses, it would be interesting.
I live in a small town and it could prove as a useful city project for cheap, reliant, local communications.
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I love Meshtastic. Had a nice convo with a stranger last night while I was LoRa wardriving to test out the range of my new rooftop antenna on my house.Β
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