Is anyone tinkering with Meshtastic here?


Thanks,
Rob

... Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. - Einstein

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
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Hi, we have a decent group of folks doing it here in Minneapolis... some on ham bands, some not... Works pretty well, with antenna height (as with anything)......

Any in your area?

-m



Is anyone tinkering with Meshtastic here?

Thanks,
Rob

... Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. - Einstein

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: ReTR0aKTiV.com (1:3634/56)

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On 12 Jan 2026, Rob Koliha said the following...

Is anyone tinkering with Meshtastic here?

I've been trying, but Meshtastic with only 2 nodes (and you own both of them) isn't a lot of fun.

I brought it up on my most recent 2-meter net, and I think I've sparked enough interest to get my little area in BFE meshed into a more populated area.

Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.

73,
Randall
WZ8Q

... Famous last words: "I'll be there in just a minute, honey."

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Hello Matt!

12 Jan 26 18:37, you wrote to Rob Koliha:

Hi, we have a decent group of folks doing it here in Minneapolis...
some on ham bands, some not... Works pretty well, with antenna height
(as with anything)......

Any in your area?

There is none here that I am aware of. I should look into it further as we have access to a very high antenna @+7500' ASL and the local area hovers around +-300' ASL. I am at around 290'. But the location is about 37 miles northeast. We're using 5 ghz radios to connect the site to the Internet.

What is the best site to find information? (of course a search engine would be a good place to start)

73 de Ray
Visalia, CA DM06ii
W6RAY/WRKZ506

... Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6!
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Re: Re: Meshtastic
By: Randall Schad to Rob Koliha on Tue Jan 13 2026 19:49:49

Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.

Crossed fingers...hands impaired.
Crossed toes...walking impaired.
Crossed eyes...vision impaired.

Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. ;)
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I'm in NC. I started a statewide mesh group with another gent a little over a year ago in Greensboro. Not a lot of users in NC then. Setup a private MQTT server, discord server, private map, website, etc. The bulk of our users put the domain name in their radio ID which drives new folks to us. It's
absolutely blown up over the last year >1000 members strong on Discord right now and 800-1500 active nodes at any one time. Connectivity from the mountains to the sea. We were getting decent connectivity to GA/TN networks, but the guy with a node on Mt. Mitchell moved to meshcore so it's hit and miss again.

Cool to hear there are others here playing with them. It's a lot of entertainment for a license free $30 radio. That low barrier for entry is what motivated us to set it all up to start with.


Rob

... If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: ReTR0aKTiV.com (1:3634/56)

Is anyone tinkering with Meshtastic here?

I've been trying, but Meshtastic with only 2 nodes (and you own both of them) isn't a lot of fun.

I feel your pain. We had/have quite a few islands of folks who don't have great connectivity geographically. Setup a private MQTT server to bridge the RF gap for the time being. One node in a cluster can get everyone else hooked up. Generally folks disable MQTT once a solid RF link is there.


Rob

... There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
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On 16 Jan 2026, Rob Koliha said the following...

I've been trying, but Meshtastic with only 2 nodes (and you own both them) isn't a lot of fun.

I feel your pain. We had/have quite a few islands of folks who don't
have great connectivity geographically. Setup a private MQTT server to bridge the RF gap for the time being. One node in a cluster can get everyone else hooked up. Generally folks disable MQTT once a solid RF link is there.

You ever have one of those moments where you you feel like a dolt because someone said something that you completely forgot existed and you were already doing in another application?

I'm having that genius moment right now. :)

Thanks for the kick in the right direction!

73,
Randall
WZ8Q

... I thought getting old would take longer.

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