I've actually been using meshtastic since January of last year, and I've known of meshcore pretty much since its release. However, until now, I have refused to use it because there was no open source application for smartphones to use with it. And I do not touch software that is not open source if I can at all help it. A couple of weeks ago, I learned about a new meshcore app called Meshcore-open that is currently in alpha. Last night I decided to give it a try, and so far I do like what I see. Unfortunately, the population of my city is only like 45,000, and there are only a couple of meshtastic nodes even in the area, and so I'm all alone here. I unfortunately am unable to put up my own repeater because my yard is absolutely full of trees and a solar node just will not stay charged.