Posted: 5/12/2026 9:19:13 PM EDT
[Last Edit: RjSteed][Edited]
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Just curious if anyone is using? I've played with it a bit. Still a novice, plus haven't used in a while, I'll need to refresh a little, maybe even update. I am using Samsung Active 5 |
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Yes I've used it. It's cool and all but what's the use case? Is anyone actually going to use it with you? What radio or infrastructure will you use with it? I feel like it's a very narrow use case when you are such with civilian rules of RF, not to mention nobody wants to do radio shit and have a full time networking job with the bois. |
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It looks cool. Comm options are getting better all the time. I am just reminded of the YouTube Dirty Civilian videos they did on trying to use ATAK. Yes it was for entertainment, but the guy was spending too much time staring at the screen than getting crap done. It feels like if your group is just a few people, it could turn into analysis overload when some good Handheld radios will get the same job done. If you are running a 20 person squad and you can stay in a safe location trying to quarterback everyone, then I start seeing some value. T-rex arms (go ahead and groan now...) did a lot of videos discussing it as well that provides some great background on it. |
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For me. What I found on it, is I can use it to mark areas where supplies are. will other people possibly be at those places yes. However, even if I had one other person using it with me, I did purchase two beartooth devices as well as Meshtastic. no those won't work together. non the less it's options. I wouldn't want to be more than a mile apart. it could also be used to mark structures checked for supplies. Extreme condition obviously. I do have paper and digital 7.5 minute topo maps as well. But they don't show the detail Atak does. On Atak I've downloaded numerous off line maps of my immediate area, and surrounding area that I have supply locations. when my drone did connect to it that was a cooler idea. Unfortunately that's gone in the latest updates. still, I've marked locations of pedos in the area originally so the kids knew where to stay away from. They are older now so that's such a big idea. Good to know where they are though. |
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Someday I'll get the server worked out. still, images of a location can be taken and saved on the map, showing the direction of the image and point of view. these can be shared between devices,. I've found in the past a WiFi will still work when there is no internet. Which allows connection between Eud. It's not a far connection, I am wanting to play with some of the beam WiFi antennas for little more distance. since DC did just do a video showing a beam WiFi, you may understand that a little more. now a days everyone is scared of signals, I get that. But it's about options for me. It does not have to be on all the time. at very least I can use it to travel to a location. And have bearing from where ever I am. I think at best, the battery stand alone on my eud is about 4 hours.with Atak installed. I like the active 5 because it has the stylus pen, and larger screen than a phone.. |
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Originally Posted By RjSteed: Have you gotten anywhere using radios? Yeah you can send very limited data over analog radios, it requires plug-ins, a tnc and then for someone else to have a similar set up on the receiving end. DMR seems to allow for more data and easier integration. Im poor however so im leaning more torwards getting meshtastc to work since its a much lower cost of entry and I cant use it by myself so It will be easier to push onto my buddys 
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Originally Posted By Pair0dimes: This is very interesting to me. I have Meshtastic devices and ATAK, but haven't woven them yet. Not sure where your located but, Im in the Dfw area and there is quite the network up here. I've been working with some local ffls to place nodes at their locations |
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We need a very lightweight version, IMO. Something like ARMA 2 map -- super simplified UI, basic friendly tracking, you can plop down symbols, draw on it like MS paint that sort of thing, not heavy resource intensive things like LOS tools and such which I understand are super useful but make integration more complicated. Such a system wouuld be plenty for real life too -- we had a multi-department mutual aid manhunt in a rural county involving little armed teams clearing areas of woods in the dark, and hearing "hey if that's you, wave" over the radio is a little pucker factor inducing... |
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Originally Posted By Sc00t3r: Yeah you can send very limited data over analog radios, it requires plug-ins, a tnc and then for someone else to have a similar set up on the receiving end. DMR seems to allow for more data and easier integration. Im poor however so im leaning more torwards getting meshtastc to work since its a much lower cost of entry and I cant use it by myself so It will be easier to push onto my buddys I purchased the beartooth but haven't had a lot of opportunity to mess with it. I wanted to be able to send pics and voice. I think the voice is only like 2 seconds. Not very much. I wasn't impressed with that. my experience in trying to get "buddies" interested was not good. One guy was way too concerned with signals. others don't have time to learn, or claim stupidity. It became pointless in that reguard. Just the same they're no longer buddies anyway. |
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Originally Posted By Greenspan: Yes I've used it. It's cool and all but what's the use case? Is anyone actually going to use it with you? What radio or infrastructure will you use with it? I feel like it's a very narrow use case when you are such with civilian rules of RF, not to mention nobody wants to do radio shit and have a full time networking job with the bois. I think the application provides a lot of training value. Sure, you can poopoo and “what if” a 100 different reasons to not use it, but the platform and application can be transitioned to other networks for SHTF use. A good use-case is my son who did his SWAT Level 1 training a few years ago near Rome, GA. It was more like mountain phase of Ranger School. Several different attendees from various police departments and their own radio systems. None of their radios were programmed to work tougher. However, they were able to use their phones and ATAK in just a few minutes of downloading the app, my son gave a quick tutorial before a night patrol to their objective and having to synchronize their night movement, crossing danger areas and coordinating the reconnaissance and raid. Simple positioning with terrain, able to text to avoid verbal commands/coordination, worked like a freaking champ. The trainers didn’t know how they were synchronized so well and when my son told the lead trainer, they were blown away. Of course, my son, typical “smart-ass” generation, said, “come on bro, it’s like the 21st Century!” I wouldn’t hyper focus on using mobile phone signals. That’s just the easy way to use it universally right now. The application can be used across a variety of communications platforms, which is another challenge that sounds like meshtastic may help solve for civilian use. I can’t say how or where, but the military version of ATAK has been very successful. ROCK6 |
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| Just getting started reading up on mesh, what I'm reading is leading me to believe it's not the best/quickest for sharing data?? |
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Originally Posted By Lowdown3: Just getting started reading up on mesh, what I'm reading is leading me to believe it's not the best/quickest for sharing data?? A lot of discussion here is around Meshtastic/Meshcore type radios. These operate at the 900MHz range and have a fairly small bandwidth. The original intent was for longer range and low power consumption, and only passing small data packets with location data and short text messages or very simple data like from a weather station or in the ATAK sense, map markers, etc. over several miles depending on LOS. It's limitation on bandwidth means it cannot do complex data, like real-time voice comms, pictures, video, drone control, and all that stuff. Now, you could use a higher bandwidth up in the GHZ range, like meshed Wifi, and get much more throughput. It could pass all kinds of data and effectively operate like a WLAN network. But, the range would be much lower node-to-node, in the order of hundreds of feet. In either case, being a mesh network would mean you can extend range with more node density, but that adds cost and complexity to the network. The stuff like the Persistent Systems radios the MIL uses are operating on something like a proprietary form of Wifi, high bandwidth in the GHz spectrum and at a bit higher power than commercial gear. They can handle a lot of throughput, but they do still suffer for range without a complex network of nodes to handle it. |
| We use it at work with a cellular network and Gotennas in the back country. Its nice to know where everyone is and to be able to watch drone/helo livestreams. I still dont know all the ins and outs but enough to make it work for what we do. The ability to download maps and create data packages is great when bringing lots of people in to the same operation. |
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Originally Posted By RjSteed: Meshtastic does the job. I purchased the beartooth but haven't had a lot of opportunity to mess with it. I wanted to be able to send pics and voice. I think the voice is only like 2 seconds. Not very much. I wasn't impressed with that. my experience in trying to get "buddies" interested was not good. One guy was way too concerned with signals. others don't have time to learn, or claim stupidity. It became pointless in that reguard. Just the same they're no longer buddies anyway. I try to make it as easy as possible for them to adopt it. I tell them what to order or just tell them to send me $ and ill build the nodes for them and then print them a guide on how to use/ troubleshoot issues. Also telling them this is a way to have comms in a grid down scenario makes it a easier sell and makes them a little more willing to learn the basics. |
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I downloaded it and started playing with it a bit. Just using my phone for now. Seems really cool, but I need to keep going to learn more. Starting from 0, should I still get going on meshtastic, or should I think about meshcore? I am also technician, so I could setup with that, but mesh might be just as good. |
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Originally Posted By SteveJobs: I downloaded it and started playing with it a bit. Just using my phone for now. Seems really cool, but I need to keep going to learn more. Starting from 0, should I still get going on meshtastic, or should I think about meshcore? I am also technician, so I could setup with that, but mesh might be just as good. You can get more hops with Meshcore but it is more technical and might be harder to get your local group to adopt it. Meshtastic is more beginner friendly, and has a larger community already using it. One of the big differences between the two is Hop Limits, Meshtastic limits rebroadcast to around 3-7 hops where Meshcore can do up to 65+ using more directed routing vs flooding. For casual off grid local community use i'd go with Meshtastic, that being said meshtastic can still become noisy and congested. Meshcore is more for regional use and range however Meshcore is still more underdeveloped currently and has a much smaller user base so it would require more work and $$$ to get a network built locally and likely more effort to get your peers to adopt it
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https://www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-Card-Tracker-T1000-E-for-Meshtastic-p-5913.html ^ These are a great cheap, weather sealed option for a starter node if you want to start tinkering with Meshtastic. They also sell pre built solar nodes if you want to set something up more permanent in your area to extend range:https://www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-Solar-Node-P1-for-Meshtastic-LoRa-p-6425.html |
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I've been using ATAK for several months. I have two servers on virtual machines and one server on a raspberry Pi 4. With the use of a Starlink Mini, you can really make it useful and extend the range. Running and setting up servers is almost a full time job. Opening ports and certicates, etc. I use both the official Tak server and the OpenTakServer. I'm sometimes using it with Meshtastic. Running the TAK mode on the default channel can flood the network with a lot of data which can be problematic for everyone. I switch to a different channel and use Medium Fast. You can stick Meshtastic devices on vehicles or buildings as a TAK Tracker and have them populate on users EUDs . For example, I leave my vehicle with my EUD but everyone can see where my vehicle is located to rally back to. You can use Samsung A15 or A16 burner phones from Walmart for $40-50, for an EUD. They're plenty fast enough to run ATAK. I use the VX Voice PTT plugin which uses Mumble and multicasting. Network PTT apps are good for when you are beyond typical radio range. Multicasting requires everyone be on the same network or you can use Zerotier. There is almost no lag compared to stuff like Zello. I can also use my Btech/VGC radio HT app which also puts a PTT overlay on ATAK that I can use my VHF/UHF radio with. Downside is that the PTT assigned to volume button doesn't work with screen off due to android hardware. You can livestream drone data with some lag due to bandwidth and devices in between. I had a buddy control my drone (DJI Mini 3) from 100 miles away, which was pretty sketch. He uses on screen controls in the UAS plugin to control it. |
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Originally Posted By Lowdown3: Just getting started reading up on mesh, what I'm reading is leading me to believe it's not the best/quickest for sharing data?? there are other options which are doable. some can cost, it's about how much one wants to put into it. a techee would be very helpful. |
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Originally Posted By SteveJobs: I downloaded it and started playing with it a bit. Just using my phone for now. Seems really cool, but I need to keep going to learn more. Starting from 0, should I still get going on meshtastic, or should I think about meshcore? I am also technician, so I could setup with that, but mesh might be just as good. iirc off line maps can be sent from laptop to phone. I'll have reload back on to my laptop and see if it in fact works. |
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So I wasn't clear on things I did. I created a perimeter around my subdivision on the Atak map. I also created one around my property. these can be used as as an alarm if a device exits or enters the property with a perimeter. This includes the sex offender perimeters I marked. I've also been able to create way points for a travel home from work. To make that easier should I have to do that. Checkpoints, can be made on the map. well either way, if you use it. There are a thousand uses for it. It's not just about tracking a team. you use it or you don't. I'm not going to attempt to convince anyone of its use purposes. It's either seen or it's not. eventually, I'll get it figured the way I want it. Make it useful for my needs. |
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Originally Posted By SteveJobs: I downloaded it and started playing with it a bit. Just using my phone for now. Seems really cool, but I need to keep going to learn more. Starting from 0, should I still get going on meshtastic, or should I think about meshcore? I am also technician, so I could setup with that, but mesh might be just as good. |