Post #1491314

2026-03-13 09:04 UTC

@marsik @daks sure, so we have here a new technology (LoRa) with a crossover of users in HAM and tech that see the attractiveness of long range low power simple tech that is legal for anyone to use and connect up pretty wide regions (we have links to NSW, TAS and ACT from VIC with plans for SA and who knows, maybe all the states in Australia eventually) and which has the feel of the early internet or Twitter (132 character message limit and all) and I hope it remains not of interest to commercial entities. My HAM friend who is over 80yo was amazed when I showed him the LoRa hardware, that it should be impossible from the snr, but it works. My area gets regular grid power outages, and I'm very curious to see what else could be achieved with Reticulum above and beyond Meshcore which is largely solar powered, if we can have wifi routers and other hardware all communicating directly without the intermediary of the Telco. TOR requires the Telco's to function, unless I misunderstand the network routing?

Replies (2)

@marsik@witter.cz 2026-03-13 10:10

@kudra @daks LoRa here is power and duty cycle limited and the frequency makes it pretty short range (we have hills all over the place). What I am saying is that there are standardized alternatives like HaLow (same frequency, much higher bandwidth) or Thread (typically a 2.4 GHz local mesh). You can build IP networking on top of anything really. The 6LoWPAN group standardized many things to enable mixed low power and low bandwidth link layers. The standardization provides interoperability.

Open ##1491315
@marsik@witter.cz 2026-03-13 10:15

@kudra @daks Reticulum mixes three things together - network routing, link protocols and privacy. So it is simpler for people to treat some Heltec with LoRa as a magic box. The standard protocols treat each layer separately and require someone who will pick the right one for given conditions. So it is too complex for the typical hobbyist. But there really are decades of institutional knowledge. I am sure your HAM friend knows WSPR or the FT8 protocols for ultra-reliable long range messaging.

Open ##1491316