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14 hours agoMeshtastic sounds great in concept but IMO it’s useless in most parts of the world due to it’s extreme low power.
If all your neighbours have one or there aren’t many buidings around blocking line of sight then meshtastic has great potential. Otherwise I would stuck be sending messages to myself.
Now, they made boards with more power that operated and crossed at several different frequency bands, specially shortwave, then meshtastic would be an incredibility powerful too. However illegal.
I will never get a ham license, one day I will get a 100W out of band CB rig, but as a matter of principle I will never become a ham.
There are several reasons for it, reason number one is privacy, I would never say my legal name to strangers on the internet, for obvious safety reasons, why should I have to identify with a callsign when chatting over radio?
Reason number two is that you can lose your license just for “swearing”? Like what the fuckl? What censorship is this?
Reason number three, it’s illegal to use encryption on ham bands, so I can’t even have a private conversation over ham radio.
Reason number four, I understand that licensed hams don’t want unlicensed noobs jamming their frequencies, I understand the need to reserve some of the spectrum to people who actually understand that just because you can’t hear anything, doesn’t mean you’re not jamming, but there should be parts of the radio spectrum reserved for free personal use. Reduce ham bands by half for all that I care, but I should be able to just buy a radio and transmit how many watts I need on those free bands without needing authorization from the government.