How many of you are Amateur Radio operators?

I am but mostly on digital modes HF. imho handheld local use ham devices haven’t innovated in a while so devices like gotenna mesh are interesting to me. I’m not really concerned with whether the hw requires a license or not, although of course it might be somehow cool to be able to mesh cleartext shouts with more power if licensed, random idea.

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I was thinking the same thing. I plan to use my Gotenna at the next Hamvention / Hamcon I go to. If Gotenna catches up on production sufficiently I think they should do a presentation next year. The Mesh topic at the 2017 “Dayton” hamvention (Now in Xenia) was packed! I eventually got lucky and found a seat but every chair was filled and people were standing.

We have better learning tools today then we had 18 years ago. There are websites, videos, apps, and of course classes are always an option. I used a combination of those to upgrade my license recently.

Lot’s of people love this site.

Audio made for blind hams but it’s great for anyone who might want to listen during commutes and exercise. I used audio to study for all three tests.
https://handiham.org/local/blind/audio_this_week.htm

I used this Android app but others are available.

Dave Casler has good videos and keeps them up to date.
http://dcasler.com/ham-radio/training/

Lot’s more out there!

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KC9PLE saying Hello!

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KD8ASA here. I am looking forward towards the growth of this product.

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KB9YYW - I am now experimenting with goTenna Mesh. Very interesting concept.

I am HAM, but also tecnician within disaster relieve org

In our worldwide operations, we use only HAM frequencies for our radios and repeaters (Tampere Convention)

Dis someone tried to use this in HAM frequencies?

The reason is, that only HAM radios can be imported into almost any country, whereas devices with other frequencies will be generally confiscated and destroyed.

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I don’t believe so but I have been thinking about that as well. Unfortunately many countries don’t have a 900mhz allocation which is where the Gotenna works. We have that in the US on a shared basis but that probably wont help you in many places. In order to use this on Amateur radio we would also probably need custom firmware. We need a way to set our Amateur call to accompany transmissions and we would need a way to set the frequencies. The Gotenna frequency hops which is a problem for Ameteur radio.

OK, I just had a look on some data of the pro version, the one with the coax connector, and there it seems to give frequencies also within the HAM 2m band.
So I thought this can be done somehow.

W4KLP - Ken in Fort Pierce, FL. Running a Mesh Relay 24/7 on solar. Hoping the imeshyou map will someday soon look like the population of Xfinity Hotspot Map. Wouldn’t that be nice? I operate digital modes on HF Bands. 73 - Ken.

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N0HJY

35 years as a ham.

17 years as a 911 dispatcher.

The past 12 years in information technology for Hennepin County, MN

Spent some time volunteering for event communication. I see these having great potential as a scalable infrastructure for rapid response to support emergency responders (civilian and professional). Especially for the non technically inclined. And they look like they will be fun to play with. Kinda liked the whole “moan” thread. Appears some interesting things are brewing around here.

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I am KB2UCE have 2 phones set up APRS. I am going to St Croix USVI want to see if I can connect via VHF to
St Thomas.

Ken Can I talk (2 way voice) to you via Echolink about goTenna? I am in Rye NY my only HAM radio is an HT. My email is clectcar@icloud.com I’m KB2UCE have Iphone and Android set up on APRS. Want to use VHF in the USVI- St Croix
73
Dave

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Here’s K6MLF, working with NZ6J, K6ETA and W6SDY in Marin County, CA

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We are currently testing gotenna for use in humanitarian aid worldwide. We are gov org and are aall HAM. Our conventional radios are all operated on VHF amateur radio band.
So far the gotenna mesh seems not to be suitable for our work, as it supports maximum of 10 units in one net, no contacts management in the app is possible (import / export) and the power seems very low as well.
We are looking into getting some of the pro devices which seems to operate also in VHF starting 142 MHz, this will be then possible to operate in 145MHZ hopefully.
One problem is so far the encryption which locks out the devices from operation in many, many countries around the world unfortunately.

Please note: There is not a limit of 10 units in a goTenna Mesh network — just a limit of 10 in a single private group chat.

Please note that you could remove encryption if you wanted by using our SDK, and you could probably also do contact imports of a kind that you’re talking about with our SDK. Also what government organization are you with? All of our government clients have not found encryption to be a problem abroad.

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@ottosykora Correct me if I’m wrong but you want to operate in Amateur radio frequencies with an Amateur radio license. Is that why you don’t want encryption?

I have had similar thoughts and I suspect other Hams do as well. I’m currently looking at ways to bridge the two.

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Any chance the group chat limit could be increased to say 20-50 users in the near future? Those of us with larger groups could really use that capability.

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KI7ICO Formerly KI4CAW. Mesh is the future with so much potential. I am so glad I am not the only HAM embracing it. I mention it to other HAMs and the best response is lackluster. My big dream would be to cook up an APRS-MESH crossover a la MOAN. Thank you for bringing up your ideas.

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Swiss Humanitarian Aid, Rapid Response Teams
Well SDK, we will look into it, but we thought it would be nice to have it somehow configurable.

As we do work worldwide, we know well what problems may come up if some devices with not general accepted encryption are imported in many countries.

Example: DECT is quite a standard, still many countries will simply confiscate any DECT phones.

Rule: if you want avoid troubles at border, avoid unnecessary encryption

Import contacts:
Well I have just configured 4 mesh. Took me long time to enter the contacts on all phones.
If I had 10 devices it would take extreme long time and will probably contain even some errors.
Therefore I would suggest that there will be function build into the app, allowing an export and import of contacts. This will ensure that contacts are on all devices in group the same.
Should be not so big problem.
In our org we have some 2h for packing and setting up comms equipment prior departure, this makes the use of gotenna impossible.

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Correct, in addition to well known problems when importing communication equipment, we operate our radio devices in HAM bands (Tampere convention)

There is encryption not wanted at all. Only then we can relay on the Tampere Convention for emergency communication.