3 ms·

I played with Meshtastic and was disappointed with range. I did not really expect miracles given LoRa's limited power, but 50 yards with direct line of sight wa

• myself248 6y ago
  That's hardly the protocol's fault though. When I discovered Meshtastic, I already had some of the Heltec modules around, which are reputed to have the worst RF performance. I tried anyway, and indeed, I had to equip some truly silly antennas to get even a mile of range. (18dBi yagi in my living room, pointed at a parking structure downtown, was able to talk to another node on top of the structure with a 6dBi omni. Just barely.) I've been pursuing other projects since then, but a quick skim of the meshtastic forum suggests that there are some much better-performing RF modules now. I'll play with those soon enough... And anyway, there are encodings other than the patent-encumbered LoRa worth considering, too. (The LoRa folks just did a stellar job capturing mindshare lately.) Really, a feature-set identical to the original IM-ME, but with an option to use ham radios to extend the range, is what I want.
  • sobriquet9 6y ago
    I used TTGO modules with omnidirectional antennas. By now we have very efficient modulation like FT8 and LDPC error-correcting codes, so I think it should be possible to do much better, even within Part 15 limitations.
    • myself248 6y ago
      Agreed, but I'm not aware of anyone trying to build those into handheld communicators.