[GCARC] Meshtastic info

[Jon Pearce]

Many attendees of last night's general membership meeting expressed interest in the Meshtastic radios that were presented and that are being used to build amateur radio mesh networks within the club area. Some radios from Amazon may actually be deliverable tomorrow so we'll spend some time on Saturday after W2LJR's VOIP presentation (probably around 10:30) describing how to set them up, so if you can get them delivered on time you may be able to get them on the air by Saturday afternoon. Below some information on obtaining those radios and getting started.

Buying the radio

First, here's<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYWFH4C?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details> the Amazon link to the Heltec S3 radio mentioned in the presentation. This is a general purpose radio and seems to work well. It uses the common ESP32 microcontroller ship that is useful for other purposes such as adding buttons or notification devices (lights, buzzers, etc.). Other radios will work with Meshtastic as shown on this link<https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/>, but be careful to only choose those in the 433 megahertz band, as other radios won't work for our purposes. These radios require a USB cable that transmits data (not just charging), and here's<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082Z1YYRK?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1> a link to cables that work if you don't have one already. NOTE - be sure to have an antenna connected before you power up the radio since it will start transmitting as soon as you set it up. Also - the antennas that come with these radios are really bad (some are actually for the 800 mhz radios rather than the 433 mhz units) so use a better antenna for 433 mhz if you have one. Here<https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1102185489/pages/all-items.html?productGroupId=40000002187602&spm=a2g0o.detail.0.0.79ac14b8ZHDGNe&storeId=1102185489&sortType=bestmatch_sort&shop_sortType=bestmatch_sort> is a source for decent antennas.

Initial setup

The Meshtastic website<https://meshtastic.org/docs/getting-started/> provides lots of good information on getting started with these radios. Briefly, you flash the firmware on to the radio using this<https://flasher.meshtastic.org/> website and then connect to the radio with your mobile device using Bluetooth and configure it. Alternatively, you can provide the login information for your wireless network, enable the device for that network (which will disable its Bluetooth radio) and then connect through a web browser. You can do much of the setup using your mobile device but unfortunately you don't seem to be able to set the frequency or extended call signs so you'll need to use the serial interface described below for that.

You'll need the serial interface

You can use the serial interface through the USB cable after installing the Meshtastic  software on your PC. You'll need the serial interface for some of the setup so it's useful to get that working soon. That interface is described<https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/python/cli/installation/> as the Python CLI, here<https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/python/cli/installation/> is info on installing it on a PC. You'll first need to install Python on your PC if it's not already installed, using these<https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/install-python-windows-10> instructions.

What's the Python CLI is installed you open a command or PowerShell window on your computer and give Meshtastic commands as described here<https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/python/cli/installation/>. Those that are initially important are the following:

meshtastic --set lora.region US --set-ham WB2MNF-PRT --set-owner-short PRT (use your own callsign and optionally append an identifier for the particular unit. PRT refers to my portable unit; MOB is often mobile, QTH is fixed, etc. The --set-ham command will instruct the radio to identify every 10 minutes, turn off encryption and also turn off the power limits on the unit.)

meshtastic  --set lora.modem_preset VERY_LONG_SLOW (this sets the transmission protocol to the one that we're now using locally.  This will probably change in the near future.)

meshtastic --set lora.override_frequency 433.750 (this will set to the frequency that we're currently using. This will change in the near future.)

meshtastic --setlat 39.84275 --setlon -75.11501 (this allows you to set your latitude and longitude for a fixed location with a Lora unit that doesn't have a GPS. Obviously use your OWN latitude and longitude!)

That will get you started - if you set up using those commands and you're anywhere near other nodes you should start to see a nodes list populate on your portable device.  You can also get a nodes list with the command Meshtastic --nodes .

Discord Channel

There's an ongoing discussion on the GCARC Discord channel about these radios.  You can join that discussion with this link: https://discord.gg/pYXJ8G6P

YouTube channels

There are many YouTube channels that discuss Meshtastic. Some are listed below:

The Comms Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@The_Comms_Channel
Andreas Spiess: https://www.youtube.com/@AndreasSpiess
Meshtastic: https://www.youtube.com/@Meshtastic

There's a lot more information available but I wanted to get this initial email out early to let those interested order their devices. Hopefully many members will get involved and we can build a pretty interesting mesh network throughout the area.

73 de Jon WB2MNF