I’m not entirely sure why I felt inclined to post this project here, other than the fact that Hackaday feels like the right place to share it. Setting up Meshtastic nodes is fairly straightforward, with only a small learning curve, but the hardware itself is a big part of what drew me in. Seeing inexpensive, low-power radios form a working mesh that can move messages without any existing infrastructure is what made this project click for me.

The ability to send text messages over radio immediately raised more questions. If this works on LoRa, could similar ideas be applied to other radio frequencies as well? Frequencies like 915 and 433 MHz come to mind, along with others that fall within unlicensed or lightly regulated bands. Staying within those bands is important, both to remain legal and to avoid interfering with existing users. With those constraints in mind, it’s still interesting to ask how far these systems can be pushed.

That naturally leads to a larger question: could larger amounts of data ever be transmitted over LoRa, or similar low-power radio systems, in a way that begins to resemble cellular communication?

This project sits at the intersection of hands-on hardware experimentation and curiosity about what these radio systems might evolve into. I hope that comes through in this log.