Description

LoRa is an interesting technology. MeshCore/Meshtastic are 2 incompatible firmwares that use cheap and accessible LoRa boards to provide off-grid communication between devices in case of blackout, natural disaster, in case of GSM/LTE signal and internet connection lost. In EU it uses 868MHz free band. The communication is limited to text messaging due to low bandwidth. The nodes can be used as stationary or as mobile trackers. Telemetry can include GPS data or some enviromental sensors.

Goals

Set up 2-3 static nodes with good antennas and coveredge. Use 2 portable nodes to check if they can communicate with each other and what are the limits.

Resources

4 LoRa boards, one Mikrotik Omni 868 v.2 antenna for the main node/repeater, 3x Gizont 10dB antenna.

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This project is part of:

Hack Week 25

Activity

  • 15 days ago: vizhestkov liked this project.
  • 20 days ago: frantisek.simorda joined this project.
  • 20 days ago: rmaliska started this project.
  • 20 days ago: rmaliska originated this project.

  • Comments

    • frantisek.simorda
      9 days ago by frantisek.simorda | Reply

      • Connection works from several different locations.
      • We have encrypted channel and multiple devices.

    • rmaliska
      9 days ago by rmaliska | Reply

      HW project was bigger success than I was thinking. Month before HW I started to play with 2 LoRa boards and Meshtastic. Plenty of nodes where visible but the communication was very difficult and also I was able just sporadicaly connect/text to my home node. For a offgrid messaging this is not reliable. For HW I flashed all nodes to MeshCore - one repeater with Mikrotik omni antenna, one Heltec T114 node with Gizont antenna as room server and one Heltec T114 with Gizont antenna as companion/node this time also Frantisek joined the project so we could test encrypted offgrid communication as MeshCore is more advanced and excels in message delivery via advanced path routing. The coverage of MeshCore network is good in our region, we where able to communicate from home and also from other locations. Future goals are to build up few more repeaters and involve more people to this project.

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