MeshCore?

I recently learned about Meshtastic and subsequently, Meshcore. In laymans terms, it's an off-grid messaging system that allows you to send text messages to other people on the network using inexpensive LoRA (Long Range) radio devices. 

It sounded pretty interesting but I predicted that if I bought a device, it'd probably end up tested and then living on a shelf for the rest of eternity. It wasn't until I stumbled across the fact that Pi Hut had a Cardputer kit for sale that included a LoRA module (Meshtastic & MeshCore both have firmwares available for the tiny computer) that I decided to get one ordered. 

That gave me enough of a reason to buy one - I could try Meshtastic, send a few messages and then flash some other firmware and become a super sekrit hacker again, or something. There's a lot of other functionality crammed into this credit card device but that's for another day. 

It arrived a couple of days ago and I booted it up, it came with Meshtastic preloaded on the device but I very quickly discovered that MeshCore is more popular in the UK, and in some ways superior (quote from SeeedStudio) - 

Meshtastic and MeshCore are both open-source LoRa (Long Range) decentralized mesh networking protocols. However, they approach network architecture differently: Meshtastic acts as an ad-hoc, node-to-node network where every device is a repeater, while MeshCore is structured around fixed repeaters and designated user clients

I read around the subject a little more and as far as I can tell, more people are on MeshCore, at least where I live in the world so consequently, I flashed a MeshCore firmware to the device to replace Meshtastic, that it came loaded with. 

That's technically speaking all I had to do to be online and 'on the mesh' - navigation is possible on the tiny screen and messages can be sent using the small keyboard on the device. It isn't particularly enjoyable to use it like this but in a pinch it'll work. To truly unlock the full functionality though, I needed to install the MeshCore android app on my phone and then pair with the device using Bluetooth. The phone can then control all aspects of the device but in a much more user-friendly way, with the larger screen and touch controls. 

I set my device name to 'arps' and suddenly started to see notifications appearing. 'Repeater discovered' multiple times with various names and then some obviously less diagnostic sounding messages, including one about some Speedos as a hat? Very odd. 

For the next few hours, I received messages like this in the 'public' channel - by default all devices will join this channel and I suppose it is equivalent to the channel '19' on a CB Radio (for anyone that remembers those!) - basically the place where the chat happens. Any number of other channels are available too although I haven't found them, except for one called #test which is simply for people trying to figure out if they are sending and receiving. 

 Despite this, I wasn't having any luck whatsoever sending my own messages, although if I went outside the front of the house, I could 'ping' a repeater known as 'M0DYA New Forest Rpt' repeater which is apparently around 300 metres from my house - all of the messages I received came via this repeater and it seems as though it's the closest to me - this repeater then, will likely serve as my main gateway to the rest of the mesh - I'll send a message, it'll pick it up and it'll be sent out to other repeaters who will in turn, repeat the message across the whole country (or as far as they possibly can). So far, in my journey, I've gotten as far as sending a '!test' message to the #test channel and seeing my message appear in MeshRank (and having a bot reply to me, telling me that I'm a number of hops away) so my communication is working!

It's not very reliable, though and the fact that I'm inexperienced means I'm not really sure why - I can ping that repeater from the front of my house, sometimes I can from a rear bedroom, other times not. The messages keep appearing though, I'd say I probably get about 80% of the public messages that appear on MeshRank directly to my device. It needs some investigation then.

Later my cousin asked if I'd take him to get his van from a garage in town, promising a pint as payment. I rarely drink on weekdays but I also rarely refuse someone a lift so off we went, I was having a play with the MeshCore app when I noticed the following repeater, located at Osborne, near Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. 

I took myself down to Calshot, which was absolutely packed with people using the sea to avoid the heat (it's about 35°c at the moment) and attempted to ping the 'IW Osborne (Dir-W)' repeater. It didn't work.

So there's a few teething problems then, LoRA communication relies heavily on line of sight and so being high is very much an advantage, or communicating with a repeater that is high, or having a longer aerial, or a better tuned aerial or, or, or.... it continues. For now, I have a different aerial on its way so expect a continuation of this story somewhere down the line - will I ever be able to reach the Osborne repeater from Calshot? That remains to be seen, but I am at least hopeful that I'll be able to reliably get my messages out via Modya, the repeater 300 metres away from my house, maintained by someone I'll likely never meet.