Meshtastic

1979 readers

13 users here now

A community to discuss Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction)

Other mesh communities:

MeshCore: !Meshcore@feddit.org Reticulum: !Reticulum@mander.xyz

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Sal@mander.xyz

HAM mode question (midwest.social)

submitted 3 weeks ago by 7toed@midwest.social to c/meshtastic@mander.xyz

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello meshers, I have a friend who is a licensed US HAM operator, I'm curious if they're then required to use their meshtastics in HAM mode, or if that's only for airtime and power limitations. Certainly has been a fun hobby ro pick up

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sweet, thank you. That's basically what I figured, but the arcane rules may have had something else to say, especially things like the HAM encryption restriction, you never know 🤷‍♂️

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

My knowledge is incomplete as to what powers and restrictions you get with an amateur license, but I think the only real reason you'd want to use HAM mode in the US is if you wanted to operate on US 433 or maybe the 868 MHz block. Not sure if HAMs have access to the latter one or not, though. The 915 block is pretty permissive here for unlicensed use, so that's usually sufficient.

Also, if a node is operating in HAM mode, it may not be able to mesh with other nodes not in HAM mode due to encryption being disabled. I could be wrong about that as I haven't read into that specifically, but to my knowledge it tracks.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yes on that second part, which really makes me wonder what purpose it serves, unless you had a bunch of HAMers in an area that want to set up a mesh.. but they all already have HAM so whats the point almost 😅