My wife and I each have a radio, as do several of my friends. They’re handy for anything where you may not have cell coverage, like camping. We also use them at protests, to avoid the heavy surveillance that’s being done on cell networks. Even if the authorities start looking at Meshtastic, everything except the public channel uses PGP end-to-end encryption, and there is no middleman that has access to the unencrypted data.
We have also put up a repeater node. It’s on top of a house at the top of the highest ridge near us. Before it went up we rarely saw more than our own nodes. Now we see several dozen, and sometimes a lot more. And the repeater serves the whole community, not just us. The beauty of a mesh is that everyone contributes to everyone else’s coverage.
The mesh in our city is growing rapidly right now. Not only are there a lot of people getting their own nodes, there are a surprising number of people putting up repeaters to help spread the coverage. It’s amazing to watch our whole neighborhoods suddenly appear as gaps are filled in.
Easiest and least expensive are a little different, so I’ll talk briefly about both.
The easiest is to go on Etsy and search for Meshtastic. You will find plenty of people who will build you a ready-to-go unit, both individual radios and solar-powered repeaters. (If you plan to put your repeater somewhere with power you can use any radio as a repeater, just put a good antenna on it.) Pre-built units start at around $60 and can go up into the hundreds, but $60 to $90 will get you a great personal radio.
The least expensive is to order a kit from one of the many companies that sell them. If the kit does not come with a case, check Etsy for cases that match your kit. Most kits do not require soldering, you just have to plug in various cables and connectors, then fit everything into the case. Some actually come fully assembled. This approach generally costs somewhere between half and two-thirds of what a pre-built setup will run. Kits start as low as $10, although most or $20 to $40, and cases are mostly $20 to $35.
One of the harder parts is to figure out which radio kit you want, but there are just two major types. Those built around the ESP32 processor tend to be a little less expensive and offer the option of WiFi, but they have a much shorter battery life. Those built around the nRF52 processor cost a little more, do not offer WiFi, but have nearly 10 times the battery life. WiFi is only used in a few specific cases, usually by repeaters and not personal units, so you may well not need it. Battery life is not usually an issue for personal radios, since nearly all of them will go for a full day between charges, but sometimes you may want more than that. Stand-alone repeaters that run off solar panels are almost all based on the nRF52 because of the battery life.
The most common starter radios are based on the Heltec V3 kit, which is based on the ESP32. It has been around a long time, it is relatively inexpensive, and it can do pretty much everything. The only downside is battery life, which may or may not matter to you. Unless that’s a concern, you can’t go wrong with a V3. My personal favorite is the T114 kit, also from Heltec, which is based on the nRF52. It is much like the V3, but without WiFi and with much better battery life.
I would wait until you’ve played with a personal radio before buying a repeater. Every Meshtastic radio acts as a repeater, so you don’t necessarily need a dedicated repeated. Find out how many nodes are in your area and what kind of coverage you get. If there aren’t many nodes, or distance is limited, you can consider a dedicated repeater.
Basically, a repeater is just a node with a good location that’s put in a good location, up as high as possible. Because Meshtastic radios use very little power, it is practical to make completely self-sufficient solar repeater units that never require charging. You can put one of those on your roof, up in a tree, or on top of a nearby hill or mountain, without having to worry about regularly climbing back up there.
I strongly recommend that you go to meshtastic.org and read through the Getting Started documentation. It provides a lot more detail (and less personal opinion). And check out the Meshtastic communities on Lemmy. Have fun!
Thank you for the detailed reply! Yeah I realize now Mestastic.Org has everything I need.
Planning to prolly get:
A rak wireless kit for a local repeater on my roof powered via PoE, and then a TTGO TEcho for my personal device.
I know that I should just get the latter and play with it first, but I live high on a hill with a great vantage point of the city so feels like a disservice to the community if I don’t also host a repeater.
One thing I’m curious about, is if I use it via poe, can I also send messages via the repeater? I.e. locally from my network initiate a message through my repeater?
I would want it in repeater mode so it would forward any message even ones I don’t have the encryption key for.
I don’t think any of the current Meshtastic radios can be used in the usual way via ethernet. Some support WiFi, but not the RAKs that I know about. That leaves USB and Bluetooth.
There is a very neat option that allows you to set up to remotely administer a node via radio. That has saved me a lot of trouble with my repeater. You can’t do everything that way that you could with a direct connection, but you can do most of it.
The repeater will automatically forward messages from your personal radio to anyone who is outside your direct range. You don’t have to do anything special to make that happen. Likewise, any node, including your repeater and your personal radio, will automatically forward encrypted messages without knowing what’s in them. Only the endpoints need to have the encryption keys. Anything in between just forwards the raw data.
My wife and I each have a radio, as do several of my friends. They’re handy for anything where you may not have cell coverage, like camping. We also use them at protests, to avoid the heavy surveillance that’s being done on cell networks. Even if the authorities start looking at Meshtastic, everything except the public channel uses PGP end-to-end encryption, and there is no middleman that has access to the unencrypted data.
We have also put up a repeater node. It’s on top of a house at the top of the highest ridge near us. Before it went up we rarely saw more than our own nodes. Now we see several dozen, and sometimes a lot more. And the repeater serves the whole community, not just us. The beauty of a mesh is that everyone contributes to everyone else’s coverage.
The mesh in our city is growing rapidly right now. Not only are there a lot of people getting their own nodes, there are a surprising number of people putting up repeaters to help spread the coverage. It’s amazing to watch our whole neighborhoods suddenly appear as gaps are filled in.
How do I do this? Shats the easiest way to get started?
Both a personal device and a repeater on my house
Easiest and least expensive are a little different, so I’ll talk briefly about both.
The easiest is to go on Etsy and search for Meshtastic. You will find plenty of people who will build you a ready-to-go unit, both individual radios and solar-powered repeaters. (If you plan to put your repeater somewhere with power you can use any radio as a repeater, just put a good antenna on it.) Pre-built units start at around $60 and can go up into the hundreds, but $60 to $90 will get you a great personal radio.
The least expensive is to order a kit from one of the many companies that sell them. If the kit does not come with a case, check Etsy for cases that match your kit. Most kits do not require soldering, you just have to plug in various cables and connectors, then fit everything into the case. Some actually come fully assembled. This approach generally costs somewhere between half and two-thirds of what a pre-built setup will run. Kits start as low as $10, although most or $20 to $40, and cases are mostly $20 to $35.
One of the harder parts is to figure out which radio kit you want, but there are just two major types. Those built around the ESP32 processor tend to be a little less expensive and offer the option of WiFi, but they have a much shorter battery life. Those built around the nRF52 processor cost a little more, do not offer WiFi, but have nearly 10 times the battery life. WiFi is only used in a few specific cases, usually by repeaters and not personal units, so you may well not need it. Battery life is not usually an issue for personal radios, since nearly all of them will go for a full day between charges, but sometimes you may want more than that. Stand-alone repeaters that run off solar panels are almost all based on the nRF52 because of the battery life.
The most common starter radios are based on the Heltec V3 kit, which is based on the ESP32. It has been around a long time, it is relatively inexpensive, and it can do pretty much everything. The only downside is battery life, which may or may not matter to you. Unless that’s a concern, you can’t go wrong with a V3. My personal favorite is the T114 kit, also from Heltec, which is based on the nRF52. It is much like the V3, but without WiFi and with much better battery life.
I would wait until you’ve played with a personal radio before buying a repeater. Every Meshtastic radio acts as a repeater, so you don’t necessarily need a dedicated repeated. Find out how many nodes are in your area and what kind of coverage you get. If there aren’t many nodes, or distance is limited, you can consider a dedicated repeater.
Basically, a repeater is just a node with a good location that’s put in a good location, up as high as possible. Because Meshtastic radios use very little power, it is practical to make completely self-sufficient solar repeater units that never require charging. You can put one of those on your roof, up in a tree, or on top of a nearby hill or mountain, without having to worry about regularly climbing back up there.
I strongly recommend that you go to meshtastic.org and read through the Getting Started documentation. It provides a lot more detail (and less personal opinion). And check out the Meshtastic communities on Lemmy. Have fun!
Save worthy post. Not the person who asked, but thanks for the extremely detailed response!
I’m glad it was useful to you!
Thank you for the detailed reply! Yeah I realize now Mestastic.Org has everything I need.
Planning to prolly get:
A rak wireless kit for a local repeater on my roof powered via PoE, and then a TTGO TEcho for my personal device.
I know that I should just get the latter and play with it first, but I live high on a hill with a great vantage point of the city so feels like a disservice to the community if I don’t also host a repeater.
One thing I’m curious about, is if I use it via poe, can I also send messages via the repeater? I.e. locally from my network initiate a message through my repeater?
I would want it in repeater mode so it would forward any message even ones I don’t have the encryption key for.
I don’t think any of the current Meshtastic radios can be used in the usual way via ethernet. Some support WiFi, but not the RAKs that I know about. That leaves USB and Bluetooth.
There is a very neat option that allows you to set up to remotely administer a node via radio. That has saved me a lot of trouble with my repeater. You can’t do everything that way that you could with a direct connection, but you can do most of it.
The repeater will automatically forward messages from your personal radio to anyone who is outside your direct range. You don’t have to do anything special to make that happen. Likewise, any node, including your repeater and your personal radio, will automatically forward encrypted messages without knowing what’s in them. Only the endpoints need to have the encryption keys. Anything in between just forwards the raw data.