[voidUpdate]

Is russia densely populated enough to be able to make it work? Around me I'm having trouble getting a connection to any other nodes because there isn't a critical mass of other people running mesh nodes and there's a hill between me and the next city

[subscribed]

I have 3 permanent gateways within 3 miles of my house (the closest is <1 mile away) and yet unless I hang my own gateway in the attic, I won't even hear anyone, even from the bedroom window that's at the direction of the closest gw.

That means my awful, underpowered and suboptimally placed gw tries to take part in the network - I can't even make it repeat late (prefer other repeaters), so it jusg mostly adds to the noise (and increases power use).

That's with Meshtastic

With Meshcore? I was unable to hear even one transmission, and I love in the densely populated region.

This doesn't really work, maybe as an impromptu off the grid chat platform for a forest walk, provided no one strays too far. Even 0.5W transceivers work better.

[subscribed]

Meshcore and Meshtastic - I got them the other way wrong (was actually digging on Meshtastic github earlier that day and got confused).

I played with Meshcore, wasn't able to use Meshtastic.

[konart]

https://meshmap.net

https://www.meshcoretel.ru/en/MOW/map

Maybe other maps too...

I thing Russia's main problem (not only with mesh) is that you have millions of people living in or near few cities and very few inbetween.

And those living "inbetween" typically have no money or time for things like mesh, they are struggling with simplier things.

[szszrk]

> And those living "inbetween" typically have no money or time for things like mesh, they are struggling with simplier things.

It's just a personal opinion, but I really think this is not the case in reality.

Those guys in the middle of nowhere are the biggest geeks in LoRa networks. They have more practical scenarios, more to gain and better conditions for great distances.

A friend of mine lives far away from me, barely populated area, a big city in between of us. He struggled to get any network traffic, but now he uses narrow antennas to point to particular repeaters and suddenly the whole metropolis is open to him. We talk with acceptable delivery rates (I'm guessing 70%, which is actually very decent in dense area like mine). He is currently trying to expand his local network. His neighbors are less technical, but they have frequent power failures and need alternative way to reach each other.

On the other hand there is A LOT of client nodes and repeaters in my city. Many struggle to reach even a single repeater - hard to access roofs, high buildings, crowded network with plenty of conflicts. This kills motivation for many.

[alterom]

>Those guys in the middle of nowhere are the biggest geeks in LoRa networks

Population dynamics in Russia are vastly different than in the West.

Geeks don't exist or survive in the countryside.

Not only it's abject poverty, it's also the culture that penalizes anyone who sticks out.

Russian countryside is kept poor and uneducated with no opportunities other than signing a military contract. That's how Russia was able to fight its 3-day invasion of Ukraine for 4 years without doing a full scale mobilization.

Anyone who even knows what a "mesh network" is would be in a city.

That's one aspect in which Ukraine and Russia are different.

[BadBadJellyBean]

Put one of these onto the hill and you might have more luck: https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005011893329415.html

You could also use their site planner to plan out optimal placement: https://site.meshtastic.org/

[voidUpdate]

I don't own the hill and there are people living on it, and I don't particularly want to hang up nodes on council property or worse, private property