I've been messing around with Meshtastic recently:

https://meshtastic.org/

It's been fun to explore. Lots of cheap hardware out there to get started with. Documentation slightly lacking but not terrible, and so far where the docs fall short I can turn to the code for answers. Good community.

Reserving comment on how the network / protocol might be improved. It's interesting to think about, but I knew little about the topic going in.

I've created a library for use by Synchronet JavaScript modules:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/meshtastic

Which opens the door to hooking a BBS up to this network and doing ... whatever. On the shoulders of that I've made the ugly beginnings of a service:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/synctastic

With the idea being that it would listen for certain messages and respond to them in some way. Boring (but working) proof of concept for this is an "echo" module for said service, which when triggered sends your text back at you.

Contemplating what actual use this might be put to and wondering if anyone has ideas. Message networking is on my mind, but with reservations; has the potential to be very slow and occupy too much time on the air.

Not strictly ham radio related, but not *not* ham related either, since there is a "licensed mode" you can use to participate in this network.

Anyhow, just thought I'd pop in and mention what I've been working on this past week and see what the DOVE-Net ham (and non-ham) brain trust has to say.

VE3XEC
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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I've been messing around with Meshtastic recently:
https://meshtastic.org/

It's been fun to explore. Lots of cheap hardware out there to get
started with. Documentation slightly lacking but not terrible, and so
far where the docs fall short I can turn to the code for answers. Good community.

Me t00 - I have two more module arriving on Saturday and I'm getting into all of the things that are 'meshtastic'.

I've created a library for use by Synchronet JavaScript modules:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/meshtastic

Super cool - you move quicker than I; thanks for sharing code like you always do....


What have you created so far? I have 4 meshtastic devices and quickly moving into... more. I'm thinking of putting a larger antenna up but haven't thought of how I can connect to my beloved BBS. Yer moving faster than I... :P



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Re: Re: Meshtastic
By: paulie420 to echicken on Tue Apr 23 2024 22:24:00

What have you created so far? I have 4 meshtastic devices and quickly

Quite a lot but also not very much. :)

There's the library, so we can write scripts to let a BBS interface with Meshtastic devices to send packets and process incoming packets. Also gather information about the device, its channels, node DB, stuff like that. And configure the device, which may be useful later for applying common settings.

The device can be TCP or serial. As long as the BBS can talk to the device over the network they don't need to be in the same place. You could on the other hand put a BBS on an RPi and just do serial, eg. for a fully integrated outdoor node.

On top of that there's a service script that's vaguely reminiscent of an IRC bot. It loads various "modules" and will route incoming messages to them depending on the destination port number, and the module can respond to the message if it likes.

That's about as far as I've gone so far. I wrote an "echo" module which looks for a TEXT_MESSAGE_APP mesh packet where the message like "!echo <text goes here>" and then responds with "You sent: <text goes here>". Useless except for proving that the library works and the service script is doing the routing properly. (And it works; I trigger it from the Meshtastic app on my phone connected to one device, and my BBS connected to another device responds as expected.)

Now I'm thinking about information services. I might make it respond to a !weather command and spit out weather data in response. Not really a BBS thing except that the BBS is making this possible. Stuff like that.

Later ... full on message networking? Could be a real bandwidth hog so I'm not sure. A protocol would need to be devised that makes best use of broadcasting and systems only pulling new messages they haven't seen before. Curious to know if the "fido web" has done anything along these lines or if that thing is still a huge dupefest.
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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What have you created so far? I have 4 meshtastic devices and quickly

Quite a lot but also not very much. :)

Understood - so far I just have 2 lilygo modules that can send/recieve but I want to build a couple more... I want to 2d print one of the iPhone magsafe ones that sticks to your phone, and the blackberry one w/ the keyboard.

I'd also like to mount an antenna on my house, hopefully to link Portland to my city about 15 miles away... I'm gonna see if I can get nodes down there.

Maybe one day we'll be able to hop to eachother!



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Re: Meshtastic
By: echicken to All on Mon Apr 22 2024 06:26 pm

I've been messing around with Meshtastic recently:

For the longest time I've been meaning to play with Meshtastic and just never got around to it. This sounds awesome and will be good motivation to try it out. I just have an old WRT54G, but maybe I can put an antenna on it or something. Not sure if there's anyone close enough to mesh with otherwise. Did you have to use any kind of external antenna? And are you using Ubiquity or something?

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Re: Re: Meshtastic
By: paulie420 to echicken on Wed Apr 24 2024 19:39:00

Understood - so far I just have 2 lilygo modules that can send/recieve but I want to build a couple more... I want to 2d print one of the iPhone magsafe ones that sticks to your phone, and the blackberry one w/ the keyboard.

I grabbed a couple of Heltec v3 modules since they were the right combination of price, features, and fast delivery. I've got a Lilygo T-Deck on the way (the blackberry one) just for the novelty of it, even if I don't think that's the direction these devices should move toward. I imagine I'll reevaluate my hardware choices once I become more familiar with all of this.

Progress for today was the start of a weather module:

https://gitlab.synchro.net/sota/synctastic/-/raw/main/img/screenshot.png

where green is me using one Heltec module from my phone, and ec00 is a script running on my BBS and responding after fetching data from openweathermap.

Whatever you can imagine doing here with the Synchronet JS environment and all BBS data is on the table. And it doesn't have to just be text messages, this is just an example of a simple user-facing application.

Sending a message like the one I'm typing now, however, would take several packets. I'm not sure if that kind of traffic is welcome on the network, so I'm still pondering what exactly to do with this.

echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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Re: Meshtastic
By: phigan to echicken on Wed Apr 24 2024 22:19:47

try it out. I just have an old WRT54G, but maybe I can put an antenna on it or something. Not sure if there's anyone close enough to mesh with

There are network maps on the web; you might get an idea of who's nearby, but they aren't comprehensive. There are stations near me that don't show up on these maps, but I can reach them over the air.

In North America, activity is concentrated on the 915 MHz ISM band. I imagine I could use other bands but would need to coordinate with someone else who was interested and near since I'm less likely to stumble on other stations there.

So it depends on where in the world you are and how densely populated your area is. The good news is that hardware is fairly cheap, so while you probably(?) won't be able to do much with the WRT54G it's not hard to get something that will work.

otherwise. Did you have to use any kind of external antenna? And are you using Ubiquity or something?

I'm using a pair of Heltec Lora32 v3 devices, and they're both in my office in my basement with their stubby little stock spring antennas. This suits me fine for the moment since I'm developing stuff and not trying to get a signal out of my house. I'm going to move one to an upstairs window soon, though.

There's a list of supported hardware on the Meshtastic website, and for the most part you're just flashing one of their firmware builds onto your device.

echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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