5 ms·

The "hand-out" case seems to be particularily promising. Are there radios that could complement a few miles of range, be it only with simple chat / send-coordin

by namibj 8y ago

The "hand-out" case seems to be particularily promising. Are there radios that could complement a few miles of range, be it only with simple chat / send-coordinates? Come to think of it, opus doesn't take much either. A sub-100$ kit with voice+tablet should be feasible.

fragmede 8y ago
The goTenna is approximately what you're looking for, albeit at a higher price point. https://www.gotenna.com/ https://www.gotenna.com/
- namibj 8y ago
  Yes, this is about what I meant. The price at about 80$ (with bulk discount), possibly slightly less is still a little high, but thanks for the info.
notatoad 8y ago
There are lots of interesting radios that can give you a few miles of low-bandwidth coverage - gotenna linked above, lorawan, or even borrowing a temporary tower from your local cell provider, but the challenge is that $40 tablets don't support any of those frequencies. The best you're going to get is to deploy a mesh of ubiquiti nanostations or similar (which actually works pretty well)
- namibj 8y ago
  LoRaWAN is weird, but it might be useful. This does remind me to consider playing around with a couple units, and maybe set up something mesh-like or so. Considering one of those only needs an ESP32 and an 18650 to reach similar properties to the gotenna, it might be feasible (if the software turns out to be usable) to get a handful/caseful from Shenzen.
closeparen 8y ago
FRS/GMRS handhelds are like $50.
- namibj 8y ago
  Thanks, though they seem to be US-only, from quick research. Also LoRaWAN does not require a license and can handle lower-power applications with the same network. I will check it out in detail later.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Spectrum allocation for personal radio service is almost always country specific.
    - namibj 8y ago
      Somewhat. But some are larger areas. I might need to take a look at lower bandwidth applications based on spread-spectrum coding. That should enable reasonable sub-unity SNR transmissions, enabling higher frequency bands with much wider bands.

by namibj 8y ago

fragmede 8y ago

The goTenna is approximately what you're looking for, albeit at a higher price point. https://www.gotenna.com/ https://www.gotenna.com/

namibj 8y ago
Yes, this is about what I meant. The price at about 80$ (with bulk discount), possibly slightly less is still a little high, but thanks for the info.

notatoad 8y ago

There are lots of interesting radios that can give you a few miles of low-bandwidth coverage - gotenna linked above, lorawan, or even borrowing a temporary tower from your local cell provider, but the challenge is that $40 tablets don't support any of those frequencies. The best you're going to get is to deploy a mesh of ubiquiti nanostations or similar (which actually works pretty well)

namibj 8y ago
LoRaWAN is weird, but it might be useful. This does remind me to consider playing around with a couple units, and maybe set up something mesh-like or so. Considering one of those only needs an ESP32 and an 18650 to reach similar properties to the gotenna, it might be feasible (if the software turns out to be usable) to get a handful/caseful from Shenzen.

closeparen 8y ago

FRS/GMRS handhelds are like $50.

namibj 8y ago
Thanks, though they seem to be US-only, from quick research. Also LoRaWAN does not require a license and can handle lower-power applications with the same network. I will check it out in detail later.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Spectrum allocation for personal radio service is almost always country specific.
  - namibj 8y ago
    Somewhat. But some are larger areas. I might need to take a look at lower bandwidth applications based on spread-spectrum coding. That should enable reasonable sub-unity SNR transmissions, enabling higher frequency bands with much wider bands.