Ok, rant time!!!!

I worked for Vint Cerf back in the early 90's. I became aware of the politics around it when Al Gore pushed for funding so the Internet could grow into something bigger than a University/Military communication system. Rush Limbaugh was on the radio daily railing against Al Gore's Boondoggle. Clinton/Gore secured funding and the Internet exploded in use.

During the 1999 Presidential election, Republicans took Al Gore's greatest political accomplishment, getting Congress to fund the creation of the Internet, and made it a joke.

Vint Cerf wrote this letter as a result:

https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler/misc/funny/gore,net.txt

At that point, given the extremely small bandwidth, we might as well just use a massive wifi, everyone already has the required hardware for that instead of producing more trash for a pretty much non-existing use case.

Nice article on Meshtastic. The problem is that, like anything, the actual distance is a lot more dependent on line of sight and the actual mesh existing. Which means we’d need a LOT more people to adopt these and put up repeaters for them to be useful. Which is doable, but not cheap.

Nice article on Meshtastic. The problem is that, like anything, the actual distance is a lot more dependent on line of sight and the actual mesh existing. Which means we’d need a LOT more people to adopt these and put up repeaters for them to be useful. Which is doable, but not cheap.

So he did invent it?

So he did invent it?

Eisenhower gets credit for building the Interstate Highway system despite not pouring any concrete.

I wonder how much you could Jerry rig up Wimax for these days. That's like 30 miles of range. I remember thinking if I was only going within a 15 mile area of my place it would have been cool, but prices 10 years ago immediately made it a no.

Edit: like it sounds dumb, but what prevents someone from picking up a used Wimax base station, putting it as an uplink from their router, then using a Wimax card to receive it? Could even maybe just rig up a small rechargable wifi box, that received the Wimax signal, then rebroadcasts it back out as wifi using your home network name/password. So anywhere near your home the antenna would just pick it up and rebroadcast, maybe just hook it to your cigarette lighter to charge so anytime your in the car it's on. I assume most people would find it easier/cheaper to just buy a cellular card.. haha. But hypothetically, I am curious what would make it not work

You can transmit over whatever, but there's trade-offs with everything. LoRa is kinda neat because it's low power.

I always thought these were more like walkie talkies for messaging than telephones that you can call anyone.

Like it would be good if cell serivce goes down.

At that point, given the extremely small bandwidth, we might as well just use a massive wifi, everyone already has the required hardware for that instead of producing more trash for a pretty much non-existing use case.

I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.

What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you're not in a city? I'm about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there's little chance for repeaters to be nearby.

That's pretty much exactly what they are. Text message in walkie-talkies. With the added benefit that if your friend can't hear you, but another friend is in between, your message automatically gets relayed through their walkie-talkie.

Clickbait title. Just say it's meshtastic.

What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you're not in a city? I'm about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there's little chance for repeaters to be nearby.