Meshtastic

I’m now at a point where I can detect 152 nodes in my city. 25 are listed as “online.”

Yet the only contact I’ve gotten is the occasional “hello world” and once or twice a response to my own “hello world.”

It’s possible that nobody has anything to say, but I also suspect the network isn’t robust enough to maintain contact and facilitate a real conversation between random strangers.

Has anybody else here managed to actual chat with someone they don’t know?

Rak wireless module with battery/solar.

My question is…now what? I’m in Seattle, I can pick up 121 nodes, but there no traffic.

Is everybody using private channels? Or is nobody talking? I don’t see many messages and got one reply to a general CQ I sent out, but no response to the follow up.

I guess I was kind of hoping for what I get over ham radio, occasional chats, evening nets, etc.

Am I running into a technical limitation? Or is that the gist of Meshtastic?

As a follow-up, can I easily see if my router is handling other people’s traffic? I’d like to know if I’m helping.

The lilygo t deck is an all in one device that includes a LoRa antenna with a screen and keyboard for messaging people over long distances without any internet using the open source end to end encrypted software Meshtastic.

The video is way longer than it needs to be but you can see the device in action. There’s a growing community of people making meshnets using Meshtastic in different cities.

Looks like you are my first contact off mqtt.

No direct contracts yet but I have been playing with MQTT.

I've had difficulty finding them locally and there can be restrictions on purchasing them internationally.

image link

The cheaper v3 and more talk on youtube finally pushed me to order a LoRa board.