No internet required… In this video, I build a public Reticulum node and test whether it can bridge completely different networks into one encrypted communication path. I send messages from a normal phone over LTE, through the internet and Starlink, then off-grid over LoRa—eventually using a $20 drone-mounted relay to reach a phone with no internet connection at all.
I’m actually interested in your reasoning why you feel that way. Care to expand on that?
By “both are terrible for that” I mean both Meshtastic and Meshcore are terrible for emergency comms.
My relevant experience: I’m a General class ham, have been for over a decade now, I’ve used my radio equipment for such things as manning way stations on ultramarathons. These utterly insane strips of sentient beef jerky will go for a casual 40 mile jog through the Uwharries. We kept track of the runners as they ran through the stations so no one got lost for too long, went searching when someone turned up missing, and occasionally called for an ambulance for injuries. The guy who slipped on a rock and hit his head was probably the most important radio call I’ve ever made.
20 watts of VHF punches through the forest no problem. I could reach both stations on either side of me direct, 5 and 3 miles away, I could hear everyone involved on a repeater we designated including folks at the fire department in Troy. It’s also not that hard to use, you push the button and talk.
LoRa uses a couple techniques to stretch the power it has, low power and that chirp modulation thing it does that I don’t fully understand to make it easier to pick out of the noise floor, but you’re still talking a tenth of a watt and a frequency that is strongly absorbed by vegetation. If you live in a forest, LoRa is useless. Even if you do set up Meshcore repeaters high on structures, which a couple of my buddies have done, repeater to repeater you get 30 miles of range, and about half a mile range to companion nodes on the ground. line of sight is VERY particular, I’ve had two identical nodes sitting on top of my car, one could hear a repeater the other couldn’t.
Couple that with most LoRa nodes like that, used for something like Meshcore or Meshtastic, are basically little external modems. The companion node itself isn’t really usable on its own, you need to pair it over bluetooth to a smart phone running the Meshcore app. And then you get the world’s half bakedest text messaging system. In most service, it’s like radio, but text. If your radio didn’t hear a message when it was transmitted because it was in the car or you were standing near a tree or the antenna was touching you…too bad.
I really want to be the ultramarathon jogger who trips on a root and hits his head in the woods at an event where the safety officer’s radio can be 3 feet too far to the left to send or receive any messages.
It might be a fun little toy in a city where you have a dense population and buildings you can put nodes way up high on, maybe it works in the desert where trees are illegal, but I live in a forest. I can shout farther than LoRa.
I haven’t messed with Reticulum. It is my understanding that Reticulum works over several media including but not limited to LoRa so it probably shows more potential.
Oh, a final note about Meshcore: It’s a FOSS project, so the low level packet protocol is very thoroughly documented but there are basically no user instructions.
You want to try training your normie family to use Meshcore? Keep a little walkie talkie they don’t directly interact with in their pocket with their phone, keep both charged, etc? Sure.
I think we may be talking about different things. When I originally said “emergency comms,” another way to say that would be “ad hoc communications in a disaster scenario.” I was imagining coordinating teams and disseminating information in a scenario where typical radio stations might be damaged or otherwise unavailable.
It seems that when you say “emergency,” you’re imagining a person who needs immediate medical intervention. For that purpose, I agree that I wouldn’t rely upon LoRA technology unless it was literally the only viable option.
My local ham club treats that ultramarathon as an emergency preparedness drill. It requires us to bring radio equipment out into the woods away from power outlets and cell phone coverage and spend a day communicating by VHF FM over rugged wooded terrain. It’s a pretty solid simulation of setting up an ad hoc communications system during a disaster scenario such as a hurricane, no? We’re there so that we can figure out when a runner has gone missing, approximately where on the trail, find them, and maybe call for help if they’re hurt. That’s not dissimilar to our mission when we man the emergency shelters for the purposes of “do you have enough diapers” or “is this missing person at your shelter?”
“Ad hoc disaster communications” can mean anything from keeping in touch with your party if you have to split up to getting news from the outside world to calling for help from the outside world. Frankly I think any of those LoRa networks are next to useless for that. The hardware is kind of pathetic, from my hands-on experience, and in a wooded area it’s almost designed to not work.
For getting news from the outside world, an AM radio receiver as installed in every car can hear for a few hundred miles during the day and a thousand miles at night. Commercial broadcast FM radio has a range of 50 miles or so assuming a receiving antenna at about chest height. I might recommend having and knowing how to use a television antenna. Powering a modern television from a generator and receiving over the air broadcasts might just get you a news conference with the governor or something.
This part is US centric: NOAA operates a network of radio transmitters in the 160MHz range broadcasting weather updates. If you don’t own one of those receivers, get one. They’re cheap, easy and useful.
Communicating with your own group, a family or neighbors or whatever your situation is, GMRS or MURS is a better solution. Both allow 20+ times the power than LoRa. MURS is VHF, just above the 2 meter ham band, it punches through foliage a lot better but is limited to simplex only. GMRS is UHF, just below the amateur 70cm band, not as easy to push through the trees but repeaters are allowed. Depending on your situation and what other folks in your area are doing, those are likely better choices.
Reaching out for help…the problem with something like LoRa for this is you’re relying on a bunch of very cheap, shoddy little radios to relay a message to…someone. CB might be a choice here, it’s a standard in the trucking industry and you might get some propagation, but being or knowing a ham is probably your best bet. Emergency comms is one of the stated purposes for creating the amateur radio service, that’s what the ARES service is for, if you’re really interested in emergency comms you should probably look into it.