MESH Networks

One part of being an amateur is to find new ways to communicate.

Mesh networks 915 MHz ISM band. Low-power, peer-to-peer network. Designed to send a 200-character message. No license.

Used for: Find a use > Paintball to make sure blue on blue does not happen & mapping the field and where your team is. Hiking and outdoors as a tracking and communication device if no cell to keep the group in contact. Telemetry applications: data, Weather, connect to a Pi or Arduino. IOT Internet of Things and automation.

THIS PAGE IS A DRAFT! updated 11/10/2025

Great for outdoors in areas with no cell service. Backup comm for Cell. Tracking, sensor data, and analysis. A lot of ways to use the technology and add more to RC/Drones and Robots.

Meshtastic https://meshtastic.org/

COST: 36$ Bare bones for the RAK. As usual, add on sensors and a better antenna. battery and solar.

MQTT: The Standard for IoT Messaging https://mqtt.org/

Current setup:

PRIMARY: Rak Wisblock 4631 with GNSS/GPS Antenna 20 cm 5 db gain

Alpha firmware

Long Name W3FT BARC Short Name W3FT

Secondary: W3F2 Short Name Stable firmware.

Rak Wisblock 4631 1-inch antenna (13 km range with perfect LOS + High Alt node to low) Pt to point 1 to 3 miles avg.

Local Links:

https://dmv-mesh.org/index.html Settings for MD, VA, or MVA.

http://www.nemarc.org/mesh.html Good for a look at gear and application.