2/19/2026 at 8:46:17 AM
I figured this might be about Meshtastic before I clicked the link. There is a lot of Meshtastic use in some areas in UA and they even use the mesh network to relay announcements of incoming air strikes. You can see the web dashboard for it at https://mesh.in.ua/grafana/d/R4RChebVk/mesh?orgId=1&refresh=... (yes that is chat of people on the UA mesh, and before you freak out, the locations are randomized by default for privacy, as broad as a 5.8km radius, so they are not "doxxing" themselves by being on there)T-echo is pretty good but it drains battery even when "off", so I don't consider it a good option for long-term use. I've had a solar-powered RAK4631 in my window for about a year now, continuous uptime. Pretty cool tech for sure.
IIRC (and I might be mis-remembering this) Meshtastic forwards packets even if it can't decrypt them (as long as it's on the same channel), so anyone could contribute to the coverage by putting a node up at a high elevation. Once someone did this in my area it was amazing how many nodes I could contact.
by amatecha