meshtastic compatibility
#1
There is an interesting project called 'meshtastic' that uses 'GPS radios as an extensible, long battery life, secure, mesh GPS communicator.'  It seems to be based on this radio thingy  which supports these freqs: 433/868/915/923Mhz
I was trying to figure out if I can attach to such a mesh  network using a stock pinephone, instead of buying the extra GPS radio.

Some specs for the pinephone that I have seen are: 
GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 (MHz)
The quectel GPS unit is described here but I can't figure out any frequencies from that document.
GNSS: GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS

Anyway if someone who knows about such matters can weigh in - I am pretty far out of my depth but it would be very cool to be able to use the phone as long-distance carrier-free communicator. 
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#2
The developer got a free Pinetab and the upcoming Pine64 LoRa module already, so this is something that should work nicely soon.

Edit: well on the PinePhone I guess not, although you might be able to connect a LoRA module via USB? But this if the forum for the PineBookPro.
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#3
It's the LoRa radio that uses 433/868/915/923Mhz and there isn't one in the PinePhone. The LoRa modules I've seen communicate using SPI too, so you can't connect one directly via the pogo pins. You could use an intermediary processor and do some programming to make it compatible, but if it's a one-off you may as well get the HelTec board they already support which uses the phone GPS anyway.
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#4
(11-19-2020, 02:41 PM)jeremyrutman Wrote: The quectel GPS unit is described here but I can't figure out any frequencies from that document.
GNSS: GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS

These can be found on wikipedia, eg GPS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Pos...requencies
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#5
(11-20-2020, 11:09 AM)wibble Wrote: It's the LoRa radio that uses 433/868/915/923Mhz and there isn't one in the PinePhone. The LoRa modules I've seen communicate using SPI too, so you can't connect one directly via the pogo pins. You could use an intermediary processor and do some programming to make it compatible, but if it's a one-off you may as well get the HelTec board they already support which uses the phone GPS anyway.

Ok thanks - which HelTec board uses the phone GPS?  
From what I can figure all the HelTec boards all seem to have their own onboard GPS.  I could connect a HelTec like this to the pinephone thru SPI , iiuc .
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#6
Anyone attempted to implement MeshTastic on the LORA USB sticks? I just ordered two and apparently there's a driver for it for LINUX.

I'm intending to try to get meshtastic with these sticks to work on RaspberryPI ZeroW devices.

$15 (LORA stick) + ZeroW (< $10) + power (battery or solar panel for maybe $15 or so) = !5+15+10  = 35

May be cheaper, I have a ZeroW already & power options including lithium batteries.

Anyone interested?
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#7
(03-29-2022, 12:13 PM)cyberchucktx Wrote: Anyone attempted to implement MeshTastic on the LORA USB sticks? I just ordered two and apparently there's a driver for it for LINUX.

I'm intending to try to get meshtastic with these sticks to work on RaspberryPI ZeroW devices.

$15 (LORA stick) + ZeroW (< $10) + power (battery or solar panel for maybe $15 or so) = !5+15+10  = 35

May be cheaper, I have a ZeroW already & power options including lithium batteries.

Anyone interested?

I'm definitely interested! Did you get it to work?
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