I don't even remember how I learned about Meshtastic. It was just one day I'd never heard of it and the next day I was obsessed and had multiple radios to play with. How I got there? Total mystery.
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Meshtastic
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A community to discuss Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction)
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It starts off as a "cheap" hobby, then you look a year later and you are buried in devices.
Truth.
I just see those devices as mesh extenders waiting to happen lol.
True! And with the new Client_Base :D
Yeah, and I can't even remember what thread I was reading today where a user mentioned it. I was just wondering around. Then a user replied to him by posting a link to this comm, I clicked it, then went out to lunch w friends. Came back and sat down to read it, and here I am. lol
I really want shortwave radio to be cool again and come back. But I guess this is the closest I can get to that concept! lol
Define "cool again"? There are a few more hoops to jump through, but ham radio is alive and well.
It's not to the level it once was, simply because cell phones are so much more convenient. But me and my buddies are all licensed. I love meshtastic and have several nodes, but APRS can punch much further and is already a significantly not robust existing network. Just less convenient 🤷♂️
There are a few more hoops to jump through, but ham radio is alive and well.
Well where I am in the states, it's very difficult to hear people talking on shortwave. It's all just church stations now. It used to be alive with people talking, now I hear church services. That's it.
Well, church stations are usually AM, and while a small portion of dedicated hams still use AM, the vast majority use SSB, which requires a specialized receiver to hear, because it's basically one third of an AM signal.
The shortwave bands are abuzz with signals every day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
But yeah if you're in a city or something it'll be harder to hear with the elevated noise floor.
The modern world is full of cheaply made electronics that spew noise all over the spectrum. So most hams in cities will take a portable radio out to a park to get a better signal. It's actually fun, there's a whole online game involving taking radios to parks and trying to reach each other! POTA!
Good fun.
Welcome! Grab yourself a self contained starter radio and see what's in your area.
I've been having fun with it, ranging around my city seeing where reception is good. I've even talked to a couple locals using it and might make them friends. Gonna put up a couple base stations too.
I have no idea which flavor of autism this tickles but it sure tickles mine.
Do you have any recommendations for cheap/simple starters that don’t need a phone?
What kind of budget are you thinking?
you might check out the thread I started about this very topic a couple days ago.
If you want to go uber cheap, you can get something like I did, which is a LILYGO T3-S3 bare board. They can be connected to WiFi or bluetooth, which means you can use them with a phone or desktop/laptop for <$25. Just plug them into a usb battery bank to play around with.
Unfortunately most of the embedded devices are only designed to be used with some other kind of interface device. At best they have a couple push buttons for rudimentary menu navigation - Under the $50 price point there are a few that do this, the community favorites from my prior thread seem to be the ThinkNode M1 and the WIO Tracker L1 Pro.
If you want true standalone, built in keyboard and everything, there's really only two options: LILYGO T-Deck and the LILYGO T-Lora Pager, both of which are well north of $100.
Thanks for the summary! I’m willing to go to $100 or so, but I kind of want 2 which makes me want to go for something cheaper just to explore. I have been looking at some of the ones on etsy. Lilygo seems very sleak. I need to ponder further.
I will say, as a beginner you definitely want to make sure you only get a module that is in Meshtastic's official firmware support list. Supported devices are a one-and-done with automatic firmware flashers and everything set to go, it Just Works™. Any other hardware like from etsy, well there's no guarantees it will work well without a lot of custom work on the firmware.
Wait till you find out about meshcore that runs on the same hardware!
Whole new rabbit hole. Australia has all but entirely moved to meshcore due to the issues with scaling meshtastic in cities
Unfortunately the primary apps and the firmware for some devices is proprietary. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a project like this.
I'm in agreement, I'm not a fan of services or communities who base their interfaces and projects on proprietary crap.
What devices? People are free to licence their apps however they wish. There's four entirely separate firmwares for my companion that vary from fully open to fully closed and paid
I believe the T-deck firmware is proprietary.
And I realise that people can license their apps however they want, I'm just saying the main apps endorsed by the project are proprietary.
I think it's problematic when communities give support and endorsement for proprietary firmware and apps as official solutions. The fact that you had trouble finding open source firmware because most of the crap they promote is proprietary is literally the problem.
There's several proprietary tdeck firmwares endorsed by the project like meshos and ripple. Like all the other companions there's open source firmware available and you're free to work on your own too
Ah I didn't knownthere was open source firmware for it as well
Doesn't Meshcore require infrastructure that someone needs to set up (repeaters or something?) and the software costs license fees ?
No licence fees (unless you count specific proprietary firmwares which are not necessary at all), and any device can be a repeater
A friend of mine said that meshcore can hop up to 64 times?
64 hops with 1 byte path hashes
32 hops with 2 byte path hashes
There's also 3 byte path hashes but nobody uses them yet
Literally just released right?
The multi byte pathing? Yeah fresh out of the box
I just got a Lily Tdeck in the other day, but haven't been able to take it around town cause I've been sick :(
I'm starting with meshcore for my use-case, but it seems like fun! I already have my Amateur Radio license, so it's just re-igniting a hobby I'm already into
Can't wait to start dropping nodes around town and setting up a local communication system for family/friends! That's my kind of nerd hobby lol
I recently learned about it from Benn Jordan -- I think his anarchism video referenced both Metastatic and Reticulum. They've kinda been stuck in my head since I have a unihertz atom phone that's supposed to have built in radio (400-480mhz). Was thinking I might see if I can set something up on that. I'm sure someone has already set something up on android, but I haven't made the time yet.