I don’t think the frequency is the issue here. Even though most people use Meshtastic and Meshcore on 868 MHz (e.g. the snapshot in your original post), you can also use it on 433MHz, which is an amateur band in most countries. The issues for amateur radio, and for SOTA, are elsewhere.
The issues from the amateur radio point of view could be the transmission bandwidth (the LoRa spread-spectrum modulation used by Meshtastic and Meshcore can use a bandwidth of up to 500 kHz) and the use of encryption, both of which go against amateur radio regulations in some countries.
And the issue from the SOTA point of view would be the difficulty to ascertain if a given message exchange was point-to-point or routed over the ad-hoc mesh network (which is what Meshtastic and Meshcore are designed to do).
I have just checked the LILYGO website, and they have the T-DECK Plus with the 433MHz LoRa radio. You could change its firmware to transmit simplex LoRa frames (e.g. with APRS or FT8 syntax), which is much simpler than maintaining a mesh network. With that, you would then be able to make QSOs that meet the SOTA General Rules (assuming your country is not one of those that forbids spread spectrum, as mentioned above).
And just to make my point 100% clear: I am trying to say that Meshtastic/Meshcore are not a good idea to make SOTA QSOs. If the goal is to coordinate with other ops, send and receive spots, etc., then it’s a completely different story, and they could be excellent tools (as discussed here).
That is becoming clear now. I was looking for applications in the SOTA realm and see that there aren’t any practical ones.
The 433 MHz version wouldn’t be usable at my QTH; as I’ve just learned, the only available option here is a large MeshCore network operating on 868 MHz.
In Costa Rica, our setting is out of an amateur band, ham radio operators are using it as a tool, and I wrote about how we are trying to use MeshCore as a SOTA Tool .
As far as I know, Meshtastic does not have a centralized Internet gateway comparable to APRS-IS, so services such as a SOTA spotter for sending or viewing spots cannot really be deployed to be globally accessible across the whole Meshtastic network. It may be possible within a particular mesh, of course, but not across the entire network, at least as far as I understand it.
And I think this is precisely where APRS is especially powerful, and rather unique. The APRS-IS backbone gives us a centralized network layer connected to the entire RF infrastructure, so applications and services can be developed and made accessible from essentially anywhere in the APRS network.
So, if the main goal is SOTA use (sending spots, receiving information, messaging, and potentially other emergency services) my suggestion would be to look at LoRa APRS rather than Meshtastic. You still get the advantages of LoRa for low-power portable operation, but with the APRS ecosystem and its Internet-connected infrastructure.
Hi Danny, I’m starting to understand how mesh networks work. So, a user in TI will be able to get the spots, but if you are outside of the TI mesh, you will need to build a new “spot service” connected to internet and to the meshcore network.
In the ham world we have APRS, which is unique because it is a globally centralized network via the APRS-IS service. And it is also accessible via LoRa.
I really think we should use LoRa APRS (and regular APRS) instead of meshcore/meshtastic to build apps for ham radio.
You’ve all got me motivated now. I have a couple of 915MHz LoRa modems set up to sit on the SPI pins on the Raspberry Pi GPIO. And a couple of spare RPi’s lying around. And some LoRa / LoRaWAN python software I hacked together to make it all talk, as a PoC for a project I worked on. It could all be further hacked to make a simple LoRa broadcast terminal I could SSH into from a mobile phone. Clear-type free-form broadcast messages. No protocol in the stack above LoRa really needed. A LoRa chat session.
If I didn’t have 915 other things on the urgent ToDo list, a 33cm-band LORA S2S would be heading rapidly for the top of the list!
Sorry. Not meshtastic. But a much more relevant point-to-multipont, unenctrypted technology for SOTA contacts!
Threaded between the discussion on Meshtastic is a sub-discussion (with a hint of disagreement) about radio amateur use outside the designated amateur bands. Here’s my understanding of the situation for the UK:
Under 275 GHz: You must stay within standard licence bands unless you have an active Ofcom NoV (such as the 146 MHz experimental allocation or specialized beacon/repeater permits).
275 GHz to 3 THz: You must have a specific Ofcom NoV (the “Above 275GHz NoV”) because there are no general, blanket amateur band allocations in this ultra-high range.
Above 3 THz: No NoV or licence exists because it crosses into the optical spectrum and is no longer legally considered “radio.” This is an ITU definition so it applies world-wide. I don’t need a licence to flash Morse to someone using a torch (flashlight) but it’s never going to be a QSO between two radio amateurs.
The 868MHz ISM band can be used by anyone [using other modulation schemes as well as Chirp-Spread-Spectrum (LoRa)]. But two amateurs could not have a legal QSO there without an NoV issued to both by Ofcom [which IMO won’t happen].
Agreed re UK. But at minimum NZ and the US - no idea about other countries - explicitly allow amateur use of the 915-928MHz (aka 33cm) including the 915MHz LoRa band on a normal amateur license with no NoV required. So I was not suggesting out of band operation. Sotadata has a dropdown entry for the band and several contacts logged for it (though probably not using LoRa!).
Hi, thanks for your comments. I agree that APRS is an excellent global network, and our intention is definitely not to replace it.
We see MeshCore as another complementary tool. LoRa APRS coverage in Costa Rica is currently concentrated mainly in the Central Valley, while the MeshCore network is expanding into other areas.
Our #sota channel provides SOTA alerts and spots, so local operators can know when a Costa Rican or visiting foreign activator is planning to be on a summit and be ready to make contact.
It is also not limited to local users. Any visiting amateur radio operator who brings a MeshCore Companion and configures it for the Costa Rica network can use the #sota channel and the other available services.
The Internet-connected service is simply a bridge between the SOTA API and our local MeshCore network. We are not trying to build a replacement for APRS-IS.
For us, APRS, LoRa APRS and MeshCore can complement each other. The goal is simply to give radio amateurs another useful tool.
As we well know the MT can do as it likes, which I suppose includes a Humpty Dumpty approach to the use of words.
But it does seem a little pointless to go to all the trouble of changing a rule that doesn’t say what you want it to say into another rule which also doesn’t say what you want it to say.
I can’t see how anybody could think that changing “band” to “frequencies” makes the slightest difference. A “band” is nothing more or less than a contiguous range of “frequencies”. Strictly speaking no communication ever takes place on a single frequency anyway - any useful signal has a “bandwidth”. The key point is that the rule explicitly requires “amateur radio use”, which is a well defined concept in the international radio regulations.
If you want to permit non-amateur radio communication why not just say that? Of course you then risk including things you might not want to include, such as PMR-446. Or if you explicitly include visible light communication that will also permit semaphore. I simply don’t see how you can have it both ways, short of making ad hoc rulings as it suits you at the time.
It can be this, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be - as Andy said, each “hop” across the mesh is a single point-to-point communication, and it’s very possible to make a direct device-to-device communication with no intermediary steps, although in reality it’s quite unlikely.
My understanding is that generally a client device will automatically try to route into the mesh via the device with the strongest available RF signal, with a preference towards “router” node types. In Central Scotland, these all tend to be solar powered unmanned nodes placed on hilltops, so you’re very unlikely to make a direct “contact” without bouncing through a router node first.
I’m not sure what the situation is in the rest of the world, but certainly in the EU/868 MHz Meshtastic setup, there’s an option to enable “licenced mode” which allows completely unencrypted communication between users (as well as a small boost in allowed output power). Unfortunately, at least in Scotland, almost nobody uses it as it has to operate as a completely independent mesh separate from the general public’s encrypted mesh.
It’s certainly pretty straightforward within the Meshtastic iOS app, any message will allow viewing of the route that it took to get to/from you. As I mentioned above though, the actual likelihood of a single point-to-point communication is quite low.
I would totally agree! There are certainly ways it could almost be possible, but it’s probably not especially reliable or worthwhile.
No, but I think MQTT could probably be used to achieve something like this. However, most users tend to have MQTT disabled to try and limit the amount of excess traffic it would introduce to the mesh. MQTT | Integrations Overview | Meshtastic
MQTT is just the messaging protocol, by itself, it does not provide connectivity beyond the local mesh.
To reach a station outside the mesh, you would still need some kind of Internet-connected gateway publishing to an MQTT broker that both sides can access. In practice, that means relying on a shared/public broker or on interconnected brokers.
So if the goal is to reach arbitrary Mesh* users anywhere, MQTT alone does not really solve the routing problem. You still need a common MQTT infrastructure, or some form of federation/bridging between brokers.
That is precisely one of the things APRS already provides: APRS-IS acts as a global backbone interconnecting APRS stations and gateways. So in that sense, APRS already has the equivalent of the “global broker” that an MQTT-based solution would need to recreate.
To save money, I bought a Heltec V4 for 30 euros. It’s operated via Bluetooth on a smartphone or tablet. There are several repeaters on MeshCore here in Hannover, all of which I can reach using the included 5 cm long tiny antenna for 868MHz.
The public channel is very active; thanks to the many repeaters, distances of 200 km involving 12 hops are commonplace—something I hadn’t expected.
However, the many users—mostly unlicensed—exchange nothing but trivialities like “Greetings from Quedlinburg” or “Good evening.” There is clearly a lack of the kind of meaningful application.
On the other hand, it is fascinating to see what is possible via radio using just 25 mW and an omnidirectional antenna—and without any internet connection at all.
That reminds me of a saying about computers: “In the past, you had a problem and looked for the solution. Now, you have the solution and are looking for the problem.”
In contrast, the project Danny, TI3DSA describes makes a lot of sense. The low costs and the support of unlicensed repeater operators are valid arguments.
