Hi All,

Chris, Kimberly and I are excited to let you know that MeshSense, our Meshtastic network monitoring software is now available!

First, the Backstory...

If you aren't familiar with Meshtastic (just a few months ago I wasn't either), Perplexity defines Meshtastic as "an open-source, off-grid communication platform that uses low-power radio frequencies to enable long-range communication without the need for existing infrastructure like cell towers or internet".

Think of Meshtastic as a way to send text messages, just as you text on your cell phone, Discord chat room or Messenger chat group, without the need for Internet or a service provider of any kind. Meshtastic is primarily text-based. Messages are optionally encrypted during transmission and display as text on your cell phone or tablet, using a free app (Android and iPhone), much like your cell phone, Discord or Messenger.

Designed as a low power system, optionally using solar panels and batteries, our Meshtastic network ideally will stay live, even when the grid and / or Internet are out, so it is an excellent additional tool for emergency communication. Like our other Amateur Radio communications, in addition to the fun of daily use, Meshtastic can be used to message your friends and family members who are also on the network anytime, even when conventional services are offline due to wind, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, solar flares, who knows what!

A few months ago, my son Brad, KB3MNE, along with a few (mostly younger) club members started mentioning Meshtastic. Once we saw the fun challenge of being able to connect our individual home stations (referred to as nodes), opportunity to experiment with antennas and learn about the 915 MHz band (which is a new band to many in our club), enthusiasm ensued! In fact, it turns out that anyone can participate and run up to one watt without a license. Since Meshtastic transceivers are plug and play, starting as low as $25, our Meshtastic project has turned into an additional Amateur Radio outreach, as some area folks who are not yet hams are jumping in with us!

Want to learn more? We have lots more information including source links, range expectations and answers to many frequently asked questions on our NEMARC Club's Meshtastic page here.

Our MeshSense Software is Now Available!

As we began evaluating the signal strength and coverage area of our local cluster, we realized we needed a tool to monitor the real time health of our network, which has lead to our creation and development of MeshSense! MeshSense is a simple, free application that monitors, maps and graphically displays all the vital stats of your area's Meshtastic network including connected nodes, signal reports, trace routes and more! MeshSense directly connects to your Meshtastic node via Bluetooth or WiFi and continuously provides all the information you need to assess the health of your network.

Here is an image of what my node, FJP1 is hearing:

Anyone who would like to see how our network is doing or how well their node is reaching FJP1, can do so anytime here, which is great for our club members to try different antennas and mounting locations to determine their individual, optimum configurations!

MeshSense is free software and available for Windows, Linux and Mac Silicon! You will find MeshSense here.

MeshSense - Setting Development and Support Expectations.

As most of you know, the core and focus of our software work is Amateur Radio logging and contesting software. MeshSense has been a fun little detour, originally intended as a simple app with just our club in mind, but we've been having so much fun with it and realized that you likely will too, that we decided to make it available to everyone. We've already been receiving requests for additional enhancements (and some of the ideas are really neat), but with all the other projects on our plate, along with our long term, multi year hope / goal of supporting our logging software on multiple platforms, we plan to continue focusing most of our time and energy on our logging software going forward. That said, we welcome your ideas and suggestions for MeshSense!

We think you'll find MeshSense very intuitive and we've added a FAQ link for common MeshSense questions from the MeshSense app (just click the gear icon at the upper right). One step that might take a little experimentation, depending on your Meshtastic firmware and OS, is the Bluetooth or WiFi connection to your PC. We've added Bluetooth and WiFi connection tips on the FAQ page as well.

We only have the ability to support MeshSense via the FAQ page. With all the effort we are putting into developing and answering support questions for our logging software, we don't have the ability to also answer MeshSense e-mail support questions, too.

And in response to the questions we always receive when we neglect to include the following in our e-mail announcements...

Package Upgrade Information...

If you have registered one or more individual programs and would like to upgrade to N3FJP's Software Package or N3FJP's Software Package and CD for full use of all our Amateur Radio software, we would be glad to apply the amount that you have registered so far as a credit towards that purchase. Please send us an e-mail directly and we'll let you know your balance.

N3FJP's Software Package includes more than one hundred programs for contesting, net management and general logging Amateur Radio applications, as well as our WX Warn weather software! In addition to full use of all these programs, registered package customers are also entitled to receive free passwords for any new software that is added to the package and free upgrades to existing programs. You'll find all the details on the Register Now page at www.n3fjp.com.

Donations are Gratefully Accepted!

And in response to the often asked question for which Kimberly, Chris and I are very grateful...

"I know your upgrades are free, but I also realize how much time and effort support, coding these enhancements and new programs take and that your pricing policy doesn't fully reflect that. Can I send you something to show my appreciation for your continued efforts?"

Yes, thanks so much, your continued support in any amount is very welcome and deeply appreciated! You can use this page:

https://www.n3fjp.com/donations.html

or send your contribution by mail, payable to Affirmatech Inc., to:

G. Scott Davis
118 Glenwood Road
Bel Air, MD 21014-5533

Thank you so much for your continued support!

Thanks!

As always, thanks for your kind words, support, linking to our web site and spreading the word about our software. Kimberly, Chris and I really appreciate it!

73, Scott, Kimberly and Chris

N3FJP, KA3SEQ and KB3KCN
http://www.n3fjp.com

Serving the Amateur Radio community with contesting and general logging software since 1997.

1 Peter 3 vs 15: Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...