Was notified of a device that has push-to-talk on data cellular that touts SHTF capability. Undoubtably, falls short of what happened during the 6 day freeze where cell towers failed us, but it can extend LoRa capability in the area of MQTT, and other sustainable comms. Right now, we cannot contact another without knowing their MAC or handle, and that won't happen without an existing network. So launching an S&F balloon or other air asset falls short in forwarding messages in topography-locked locations. S&F to me is like a Postman that can deliver when comms are possible. Like, who is alive?
Cons during cell connectivity occured during the Jan 6 Insurrection claim, which used geo-fencing of cell comms. Cellular data is hardly connected to individuals, and should provide Encryption. My take on HAM is that there is no encryption capability under license. Encryption is key to comms these days, unless you're just saying hello. Where is the safety in that?
You make very good points, Joe. PTT over cell networks is... not that interesting. Given the bandwidth limitations on LoRa I don't think any kind of scalable audio is really viable outside of some Edge AI powered approaches we discussed at MESHCON. That's where we'd like to experiment...
On Hypermesh, we're working on getting a very early alpha release put together. Please let us know if you'd be interested in trying it out and we'll be happy to share details soon as the build is available.
Absolutely. I'm sure those in attendance would be interested as well in testing hypermesh. The entry costs are really low considering the benefits. The problem, again, are the intermediate nodes to connect others of interest. I'm considering a few units with the appropriate interested high school kids, but finding them has proven difficult in terms of both interest and capability.
Using AI to transcribe, yes. Even the Meshtastic is constrained in showing multiple messages which may be scrolled. With current and, likely, future events, I'm really pushing family to engage. They are pockets, however, so this handles the "last mile." We need backhaul to handle occasional connectivity, and pass messages (with timestamps.)
