I remembered recently that I do hold a HAM radio license and took it upon myself to build a small solar powered radio that runs on the Meshtastic network that doesn’t require a license at all. The mesh is very popular and is a good choice for city applications because of the number of existing nodes. It took about a month to build because of some parts I ordered from Seeed Studio.

This project can be found on YouTube by Black Flag Civilian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmINEghCOc. It was at the time $35 to build but the garden light in my area went from $9 to $14 recently.

Build Process

I haven’t setup a good outdoor table to solder on so that I’m not inhaling the smoke, unfortunately I sat on my living room floor rug. I would highly recommend to use a soldering fune extractor or wear a mask.

I did not have a place to mount my radio without expecting a letter from my HOA, so it sits on a windowsill where there is a lot of sun. Since it’s summer, the casing and battery overheat. I have not had time to look for a cooling option but I have moved it to sit in a more shaded portion of the sill.

Meshtastic

I was initially going to use this build and flash the radio with Meshcore, another mesh network, but it is not as supported for short range communication. I ended up selecting Meshtastic so that I could communicate with more people and test private channels with a mesh that would have more nodes to hop.

I found out that Switzerland’s train network SBB also uses LoRa at their stations. There are a few maps, but I use the one created by Liam Cottle and the Meshtastic app.

I am considering expanding the network in my city.

What I Learned

This build is very quick, but ordering parts can increase the total time spent on it.

I think that Meshtastic is an amazing mesh, and even with so many users it’s not mainstream in the least. Radios are still a niche hobby but there is a gap it can close that will popup when the “internet” goes down.

The batteries in solar garden lights overheat quickly when they have to power more than a small light in direct sunlight and cause the radio to become unrealible.

What Next?

I will build a few more LoRa radios and do a range test with the SenseCAP Card Tracker T1000-E for Meshtastic using a private channel.