K1RA has a good map for the area of Virginia just outside of Washington DC. They use their own MQTT server and utilize Liam Cottle’s map software to map their mesh.
We’ll try to sit by the front door. Look for the group playing around with metastatic radios. Bring your metastatic device if you’re got one. See you there!
APRS and Meshtastic are the two most important mesh networking technologies today. For a few years now people have been deploying solar-powered meshtastic repeaters. The current draw on RAK-based mesthastic devices is extremely low and lends itself well to solar powered installations. Until recently, however, ham radio APRS digipeaters were difficult and expensive to run on solar power. This all changed with the introduction of the LILYGO T-TWR Plus, a 2 meter ham radio built on top of an ESP32 computer. The T-TWR Plus can be flashed with custom firmware to become a small 2-watt APRS digipeater with low power draw – perfect for solar power.
The total project cost is less than $300. For around $1000 a group could deploy four of these around a city, providing off-grid communications for thousands of people for less than the cost of a single HF ham radio.
The combination of Meshtastic and APRS allows anyone with or without a ham radio license to communicate via wireless mesh network.
In the future someone might also be able to connect these devices together in order to pass traffic between the APRS mesh network and the Meshtastic mesh network.
Make sure the antenna is connected before you power on the device. Try not to touch the metal components on the board with your fingers while the device is powered up.
Be sure to set the device role to “Router” and set the location to “fixed” while you are on-site installing the node – this will allow it to show up on the map for everyone on Meshtastic.
Flashing the APRS Repeater:
Make sure the antenna is connected before you power on the device. Try not to touch the metal components on the board with your fingers while the device is powered up.
In the hardware menu of the device be sure to set the OLED display to “DIM.” There is a known issue where the display cannot be turned completely off, this results in increased battery drain and hopefully in future firmware releases this issue will be addressed.
DC Mesh is a community group working to build a mesh network of solar-powered Meshtastic radios in Washington DC. This network acts like a city-wide text messaging system, allowing people to communicate publicly or privately with anyone on the network. All of this happens without any external infrastructure – no power, no cell phone towers, no internet.
DC Mesh follows in the footsteps of Austin Mesh, a metastatic group in Austin Texas that has built up one of the largest Meshtastic networks on earth.
