I guess this is classic nerd shit but if you want to do that sort of thing, have a look at Brisbane's Meshtastic network.
Meshtastic units are small, low power, long range (up to 15km line of sight) devices capable of messaging and telemetry. Some devices pair with phones, others are also capable of standalone messaging. My Bluetooth one has a battery life of 2-3 days.
What's the point? Nothing, for me. It's just neat to chat with the other nodes on the map, and it's not dependent on any other infrastructure or networking.
From the last post on this sub a year ago it seems the number of nodes has grown by three fold.
In case you're worried about privacy, you can either configure your node not to send location, or set it to use a less accurate position (for example, within 300m). Those points end up being "rounded" so nobody ever knows the real location.
Posted by fantastickles
25 Comments
Funny, I was just thinking of adding some nodes on the Gold Coast
Myspace?
I know one of these is you Aaron and Jarod
Huh. Might be worth actually investing in a couple. Didn’t think there would be so many stations around, so held out. Heltec v3 still the way to do?
I forgot to mention the point of it being a mesh – the nodes will pass messages between each other, which means you can chat with people even if you can’t reach them directly – as long as you can hop between nodes to get there.
Be pretty dope if you could connect up to some solar panels and throw the nodes anywhere.
I’ve actually looked into this but never acted on it haha.
My inner nerd is curious
What map are you using, I want to see how many nodes are near me, I want to see where I should add nodes
Oh neat, I moved back to Brisbane a few years ago and it wasn’t very connected back then, compared to back in Sydney anyway.
Will have to get my nodes back up
Hey cool. I can see one of my nodes in this pic!
I use Meshcore personally
Is there an idiot’s guide or a good starting spot for what you need / what you can do? I’m kinda curious.
I read that as “METHtastic” like it was a drug thing.
Funny you mention this, I have just started watching a ton of videos and have ordered components for my first nodes now awaiting delivery (located Redlands)
What map is that?
I’ve always wanted to purchase one and play around with it for funsies but my neighbour has one and I don’t want to ruin it for them by bringing one in at such close proximity (at least that’s what Google says can happen).
‘up to 15km line of sight’
I’ve sent messages 35km between high points.
It is a new version of an old concept.
Back in the day before broadband was affordable, there was a project run by a guy at UQ which aimed to create a mesh network across Brisbane using 802.11 (original version of WiFi)
It fizzled out eventually as ADSL became affordable, but Meshtastic and Meshcore do a similar thing, far cheaper and easier, but also less functional.
Brismesh was an actual TCP/IP internet and as such supported all the associated protocols HTTP, SMTP, FTP, NTP, SSH etc etc, where as Meshtastic seems more focused on basic communication.
It is still below critical mass in BNE atm, but a great idea, and I have a node myself 🙂
No doomsday prepper would be caught without one !
don’t forget to grab a coat if you decide to head north; I hear HOTH gets cold this time of year
I own a few houses because I’m a rich cunt but I have one of these in every one on the network for the solar batteries. I can see two of mine there but you’re missing another two- I’ll have to check on them.
Wow I was recently looking into meshtastic but figured it would be awhile before it picked up enough in Aus to be viable.
So from my understanding, a message will be relayed via nodes/other devices until it reaches the recipient. How far could this realistically reach in Aus?
Obvs there’s large parts of this country that are sparsely populated, but I’d imagine you could get a pretty good chain on the east coast. Would it be at all possibly to reach someone in Tassie from bris for example?
Really intrigued to get into it lol
Mate and I are going to start this in Ipswich
MeshCore is growing fast, and is a better technology if you want messages to reliably get through. You can use the same hardware.
Check out MeshCore. Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania are all connected and is slowly working it’s way up to east coast to Brissie.
[https://map.eastmesh.au/?lat=-32.81893&lon=147.19441&zoom=5&layer=dark&history=off&heat=off&labels=off&nodes=on&legend=off&menu=off&units=km&history_filter=0](https://map.eastmesh.au/?lat=-32.81893&lon=147.19441&zoom=5&layer=dark&history=off&heat=off&labels=off&nodes=on&legend=off&menu=off&units=km&history_filter=0)
Meshtastic was great until you try and go outside of your local area due to the hop limit (7), Meshcore allows up to 64 hops and seems much more reliable on message delivery.
Meshtastic is great for local area such as hiking groups etc, Meshcore is long range connections.
There is a wiki for Brisbane with great details on how to get started on either mesh at [https://wiki.mbug.com.au/](https://wiki.mbug.com.au/)
The discord is great for connecting with other mesh users and getting help with setups [https://discord.gg/zqkmqaex](https://discord.gg/zqkmqaex)