Well, all I can say is LOL. On this forum, people often say that we do what we like because we’re doing it for free. That meme was probably meant to say: he created a brand new, completely open project (MIT license, not GPL like Meshtastic) to solve all the issues of the old protocol, so why should he ‘waste time’ still working on the old one? This implementation could be something that comes from the community—maybe just on a few repeaters acting as a gateway between the two worlds.
Anyway, that’s just my personal take from reading that page.
Keep in mind that the licenses are different (GPL vs MIT). I’m not sure which license the gateway firmware could use; I’m concerned it might necessarily fall under GPL due to licensing requirements.
You can easily relicense MIT stuff to GPL,so there wouldn’t necessarily be a license conflict here.
I personally prefer the GPL anyway as it ensures free software will stay free and can’t be stolen by a company to make profit with a closed-source fork.
Devices aren’t at all locked to either meshcore or meshtastic, or even whatever could come later, the ESP32 chip is enough powerful and open to allow any firmware development to adapt to a yet another LoRa mesh communication technology.
At worse, one day you’ll have to re-flash them with a newer firmware for another, better LoRa mesh network.
You convinced me that I should get one
Well,the initial reason for not buying one was that my preferred shop only has the Heltec V2 without the plastic case and I didn’t want to order directly from China where I’m not sure if I could even pay it (SEPA unsupported,American Express unclear).
Then I read about the MeshCore drama and the behavior of the developers,so I thought maybe it’s better not to have one then.
Now I looked again and found a German company that has the Heltec V4,still without the plastic case that I’d really like to have,but I think I’ll order that anyway:
@Andrea do you plan adding support for connecting to the Heltec over Wifi?
If not,that means I’d have to get two of them as I want to run one permanently as relay for my town,but USB is the power supply and shutting down the Haiku computer would also kill the Heltec?
Please correct me if I’m wrong and permanently running+USB connection could work with one device.
My repeater is powered by a very simple USB power adapter from an old phone.
I’m trying to get Bluetooth working because not all Heltec modules have built-in Wi-Fi.
But I’m having a lot of trouble even just downloading data from the phone’s contacts so it’s going to be a very long project… Luckily, the USB connection worked right away!
I’m going to make one of mine a repeater. I’d like to have a repeater powered with batteries and kept charged with a small solar panel. I think I will contact the local amateur radio club and see if they would like to install a repeater in their area which overlooks a large chunk on the northeast side of the island. I do believe I should have LOS to that site from the house.
I’ve finally bought two Heltec LoRa 32 devices
Unfortunately the shop linked above didn’t work in the end because they demanded a phone number and neither 0000000000 nor 0123456789 worked,and hell I won’t give my real phone number to a random shop where I’ll be only buying once
Now I bought these: https://www.kaufland.de/product/540259014/
These are the older v2 models (and a bit more expensive) but feature-wise it shouldn’t make a big difference I hope.
Anyway,with two of them I can permanently run a relay for my town and also connect one to my Haiku computer with USB to use Sestriere
If you haven’t placed the order yet, go for version 3 or 4—they work much better and they’ve fixed a ton of bugs. If they’re already on their way, though, we’ll just do some debugging!
I haven’t sent the money yet,so I can still cancel the order.
But then I need to find another shop that sells them and accepts SEPA or AmEx payment and doesn’t demand a phone number.
I generally prefer buying offline and order something only once every few months,so I’m quite surprised how difficult it is to find shops that actually work.
Edit: I finally found a shop that works and has the Heltec LoRa V4
It may take 2-3 weeks to arrive,but I don’t care,I can wait.
Edit 2: The preview and the page title says V3,but on the page it says V4,let’s see which one arrives here
The Heltec boards arrived today–woohoo! I configured two of them as companion clients and one as a repeater. I haven’t seen any other activity other than myself but these devices are inside a house with thick stone walls. I’ll need to relocate the repeater to a better (higher) location and will probably get a better antenna for it. I configured one of the devices to work with the bluetooth mobile app, and I’ll carry it around to see if I happen to see any other activity around the island.
Sestriere is working well! I cloned and built the latest source code, so should have the newest version (1.8.0-alpha3). Awesome work @Andrea, thank you!
I’m glad it’s working! Let’s just say your location isn’t the easiest but looking at the online map, I see there’s another MeshCore user on the island next to yours although I doubt you’ll be able to reach them with a stock antenna. We’ve gone a bit off-topic here—I can message you privately if you like.
I saw that on the map, but I’m wondering if it isn’t an error. First, that island is very small and only has a population of 400 inhabitants, and the frequency that is advertised is not a frequency used in Portugal or Europe I think. Yeah, it would be hard to make a contact there as they are about 300 km away. The central group could definitely have inter-island comms with efficient, well-positioned antennas.
I did a little “wardriving” this afternoon with the device I configured for bluetooth, but didn’t see anything. I also went to a high location and tried some adverts also without any responses. I haven’t gone to the other side of the island yet though, so there’s still a possibility!
I’m going to contact the local amateur radio club, as this seems like a perfect opportunity for them to attract new members. They can use the LoRa devices without license and it could be a gateway into more advanced things.
so it’s going to be a very long project… Luckily, the USB connection worked right away! 
