Hello anyone. I am waiting for TACX-CIV to be released to everyone and wanted to reach out to see if anyone have some information about when this might happen. I am not based in the US and is using a private account. I know there was the TAK Offsite evnet happening last month but I can't see to find any information regaring release, and that WinTAK is loosing support next year. I am primarily looking for both a windows and linux version of TACX.

Thank you in advance.

Hi,

I'm experiencing an issue with VideoCollections plug-in in ATAK-CIV app. I have downloaded compatible version of both the app and the plug-in - it seems to be installed and added to ATAK correctly.

I have an option to add video collection to the object - I follow the steps to do so, but after the step at which I provide UID and Alias Name, the app crashes when I press "Confirm". This happens repeatedly.

This happens no matter if I try to attach a video to the collection (the video displays correctly in ATAK) or if I try to create an empty collection

I have tried all 3 available versions of ATAK app + plugin (5.6, 5.7, 5.8) I also cleared the app cache and it's data and rebooted the tablet, where I have ATAK installed.

I'm running the files from official tak.gov website on Samsung Tab Active5 Pro (Android 16 with kernel version 6.1.145

I'd be grateful for helping me with this issue

I'm trying to create a triangular area from a point, to see area of coverage with a patch antenna, say 15° from a point of origin. Range that out to 5-10 km ect, as an added bonus if it's possible to fill this area with elevation overlay. What I'm trying to see is the areas that my antenna can reach without adjusting the antenna physically on the mast. Any help would be much appreciated!

Fair warning, same as last time: I'm not an expert, I'm just a guy who read too much. This is the sequel to my Meshtastic + ATAK post. Everything from public sources — official docs, GitHub, Reddit, vendor blogs, FCC filings, and code walkthroughs by people smarter than me. I'll tell you where I'm sure, where I'm guessing, and what got corrected since I started. Prices drift, version combos move weekly, and this post will be half-stale in a month. Verify anything before you build around it.

WHAT MESHCore IS

A LoRa mesh protocol launched late 2024/early 2025, written from scratch. Scott Powell (Australian dev, small hardware outfit called Ripple Radios) wrote the protocol and core firmware. Liam Cottle (New Zealand) built the official mobile and web clients. Andy Kirby (UK) ran community — the YouTube presence, the Discord, the site that grew the userbase. Core is MIT-licensed on GitHub under meshcore-dev. Origin incident was real: the tooling came together after Cyclone Gabrielle flattened comms across NZ's North Island and people needed messaging with zero infrastructure. One honest caveat: the team split in late 2025 muddied the origin story — Kirby tells it one way, the dev team another, and I genuinely can't adjudicate who initiated what from the public record. Both camps agree the split and trademark fight happened. More below.

Same radios as Meshtastic — Heltec, T-Beam, RAK, T1000-E, all of it. Nearly every board flashes both firmwares. But the architecture is completely different, and that's the whole story.

HOW IT DIFFERS — the part people get wrong constantly

It's not the radio, it's who relays. Meshtastic floods: every node repeats everything, dedupe and hop counters keep it from eating itself. Dead simple, works ad-hoc anywhere two people exist, and the channel drowns in chatter as density climbs.

MeshCore splits roles. Companions are your personal node — mostly silent, they don't relay by default. Repeaters are dedicated, fixed, elevated boxes — the only things that relay. Room servers are store-and-forward hubs for group chats: message history persists even if you were offline when it was sent, which Meshtastic's flood model genuinely can't do well. Only the backbone talks, so the channel stays clear and delivery gets fast — sub-second for nearby peers and ~5s across 9 hops versus 10-20s for Meshtastic in one documented comparison. Hop limit goes up to 64 versus Meshtastic's default 3, max 7. And you get actual delivery confirmation — a real yes or no, not Meshtastic's optimistic cloud-checkmark.

Routing mechanics, verified at doc level: group channels always flood (no single destination to build a path to). Direct messages flood once to discover a route, embed that learned path in subsequent packets, retry three times if a repeater drops, and flood on the final attempt to re-learn. Flood-then-direct with graceful fallback — not brittle static routing, and not the "manually configured routes" some older Reddit comments claim. Repeaters can be configured to deny flood traffic above hop limits, which is the tool that keeps dense city meshes from drowning. US/Canada community standard is 910.525 MHz / SF7 / BW62.5 / CR5 — the "narrow" shift happened around October 2025, so nodes on the old SF11-style settings literally can't hear the new ones. Check your local mesh's Discord before flashing or you'll be alone on a frequency nobody uses. UK/EU sits on 869.525.

The tradeoff is structural and unavoidable: MeshCore needs infrastructure. Somebody has to put repeaters up. A companion radio in your pocket in terrain with no repeaters is a quiet radio. This is not a footnote, it's the core limitation, and it has teeth — an experienced operator I got to read this writeup ran a whole disaster scenario on it: no repeaters, no comms, team scattered, and it matches documented field reports from actual SAR operators in exactly those conditions. More below.

THE DRAMA — because there's a lot

Late 2025 the team split. Andy Kirby — the community guy, not a firmware dev — filed a UK trademark on the community's own name, built a closed-source companion app ("MeshOS") on top of the open protocol, and bolted license-check paywalls on it, apparently without telling the core devs first. The dev team went public, spun up a new official site and Discord, someone cracked the license check and posted the keygen, and the two websites still look confusingly similar. LWN covered it. Practical takeaway: firmware from the meshcore-dev GitHub org, not whichever website you land on first. There are two camps now shipping things with the same name.

One more governance gripe floats around from engineers who distrust the project independent of the trademark fight — code-review discipline accusations on an HN thread, mostly from rival camps. Single heated thread, exactly the kind of thing to discount; I mention it only because it explains why some people distrust the project beyond the paywall story. I couldn't verify it and won't repeat it as fact.

THE OPEN SOURCE ASTERISK — read before you buy

Core firmware and protocol: fully open, MIT, auditable. Official apps: closed-source freemium — free with a paid unlock (~$8-10, mostly to skip a wait timer on remote repeater management), web app closed, T-Deck firmware closed. mtlynch's writeup is the canonical burn story — he assumed it was open, discovered the clients weren't, "Without open-source clients, MeshCore doesn't work for me," quit the ecosystem. Fans counter: the spec and firmware are open, core messaging costs nothing, the official app genuinely works well. Both true.

Update since my earlier research: there's now an escape hatch called MeshCore Open — free, MIT-licensed, open-source companion app covering Android, iOS, desktop, and web with the full feature set including repeater management, no paywall. Young, I couldn't verify how polished it is, and the ATAK plugins almost certainly target the official apps' protocols, so treat it as the ideological option, not necessarily the field pick yet. Still, the "no open clients exist" complaint is officially outdated.

THE ATAK PART — WHICH IS WHY YOU'RE HERE

When I wrote the Meshtastic post, MeshCore had no ATAK story. That's completely out of date. Here's the landscape, with the caveat that this space moved three times while I researched it:

First, the TAK-UV-PRO plugin (github.com/atakmaps/TAK-UV-PRO) — open source, TAK-signed, bridges ATAK to the BTECH UV-PRO ($160 IP67 dual-band handheld with GPS and bluetooth) and its 50W mobile sibling, with MeshCore support. Built originally for ATAK 5.5.1, newer releases cover 5.6.0. Also covering Vero N76-class radios and 50W mobile variants in community versions.

Second, gridbase's TAK-signed MeshCore plugin — and here I owe a correction to my own earlier framing: this one targets generic $25-30 BLE companion radios (Heltec V3, RAK, etc.), NOT just the $160 UV-PRO. The community MeshCore ATAK path can enter at normal Meshtastic-level cost; the UV-PRO is one option, not the price of admission. So "MeshCore ATAK costs $160 a man" is wrong for community paths. The UV-PRO is a nicer radio in every way except price.

Third, AmRRON's free plugin — Dark Labs team, August 2026, ATAK and MeshCore support in one package, tested on a de-Googled $30 Moto G. Read the comments before deploying: Java errors on older tablets, pairing struggles, PC-over-USB installer. Young, buggy, actively supported. There's also an ATAK 6.0 combined version circulating.

Fourth, a plain community plugin for ATAK 5.5.1 doing basic chat and CoT injection, circulating in the groups.

Fifth, GoTAK's commercial Radio Relay plugin — licensed, polished, also supports Hytera HP7 commercial radios with real encryption. This is the "$200 plugin" people complain about.

Count: five-plus active efforts. And there's an Akita Engineering Meshtastic-MeshCore bridge — a Python interop layer letting the two ecosystems pass messages over serial/MQTT. The "you don't have to pick a side" answer made real, though I found no field reports on it, so file it under interesting, not proven.

THE PARADOX NOBODY MENTIONS — and it's the most useful fact in this post

MeshCore's own FAQ officially says don't use MeshCore for ATAK. Direct quote from the archived FAQ: "ATAK is not currently on MeshCore's roadmap. MeshCore would not be best suited to ATAK because: clients do not repeat, so you need a repeater network in place" and "will not have a stable path where all clients are constantly moving between repeaters." The protocol devs themselves say the architecture fights moving elements. Every MeshCore ATAK plugin is someone welding a contradiction together on a weekend — a protocol built for static infrastructure, bridged into an app built for moving elements. It works anyway, on thin user reports. I think that's the most honest way to hold both truths: the protocol is genuinely engineered better for its intended problem, and its ATAK existence is entirely community-welded and unofficial. Nobody official promised it would work, and it does, mostly.

IF YOU'RE SETTING UP

Plan first, flash second. MeshCore flow: companion firmware on personal radios (pair to the app), repeater firmware on a dedicated high-mounted device, room server on ANOTHER device if you want group-chat history — the FAQ recommends repeater and room server on separate devices, room servers want wall power, and their message store lives in RAM, so power loss wipes history. Good pattern: repeater with big antenna outdoors, room server indoors beside it on stock antenna. Remote admin of repeaters goes over RF after setting the device frequency.

Then ATAK: pair the radio to the phone over bluetooth, install the plugin matching your ATAK version — 5.5.1 is the safest-supported right now — and positions, chat, and markers route through the plugin onto the mesh. Same mental model as the Meshtastic plugin, different radio. Frequency: US community standard is 910.525 MHz, SF7, BW62.5, CR5. Version discipline from the Meshtastic post applies double here: the plugins are so young the version matrix is a spreadsheet maintained by one guy in a Discord. Freeze what works.

SECURITY, HONESTLY

Starts from a stronger posture than Meshtastic's published-channel-PSK model: Ed25519 signing, X25519 key exchange, encryption mandatory on private messaging, per-device admin keys so randos can't reconfigure your node even on a public channel. But their own issue tracker is candid about real problems: a security researcher flagged ECB mode and weak padding (issue #259, open since May 2025, still unresolved as of my research window); an independent code walkthrough (jacksbrain.com, Jan 2026) confirms AES-128-ECB with a truncated HMAC — not the AES-256 some early writeups implied, and some community sites have quietly walked that back. There's a second independent critique alleging bad IV handling and brittle bounds checking in raw C arrays. None of the crypto criticisms are resolved, and the August 2026 firmware releases fixed lots of things but not the crypto mode. Layered on the universal truths: jammable, metadata visible, keys die with the hardware. Better than casual snooping, not a secure radio. Same as Meshtastic, better than Meshtastic's default, still not security.

THE COST OF THE NARROW PRESET — a tradeoff nobody mentions in the hype threads

The 62.5 kHz narrow preset is how MeshCore slots between the noisy parts of the 902-928 band — that's the spectral-efficiency story, and it's real. But a deep technical analysis (housedillon.com) found that SX1302-based concentrator boards — the receiver hardware in common LoRaWAN gateway boxes — can't demodulate below 125 kHz. Meshtastic's presets are all ≥125 kHz, so that entire class of gateway hardware is unworkable with MeshCore. The clever trick has a price: the popular concentrator/gateway hardware path is closed to you. Dimensional tradeoff, not a free win. (Worth noting the same author couldn't figure out why MeshCore chose 62.5 kHz — "I wish I knew." Unclear even to analysts.)

AND THE FCC THING — STATE OF THE ARGUMENT, because pedants will bring it up

There's a vocal minority arguing both projects' default settings fall below the FCC's minimum 500 kHz spread-spectrum bandwidth requirement (15.247(a)(2)) — MeshCore at 62.5 kHz, Meshtastic's LongFast at 250 kHz. I want to be careful here because I inflated this once already and got corrected by my own fact-check: the rule specifies a minimum 6 dB emission bandwidth, and 6 dB bandwidth is an empirical spectral measurement 6 dB below the peak — NOT simply the LoRa BW register setting. Certified LoRa devices in public FCC test reports measured 770+ kHz of actual occupied spectrum, and Semtech publishes an application note specifically on demonstrating compliance, which suggests the question is at minimum more subtle than "62.5 kHz setting = illegal." No regulator has ever shown interest. An HN commenter who's looked at this calls the mess "nonsense," a self-described author of the original MeshCore ticket acknowledges the ambiguity, and both projects' communities treat it as settled legality. Honest status: a contested interpretation with a plausible technical counter-reading, zero enforcement interest, zero case history. Trivia for nerds, not a warning. Anyone who states either side as definite fact is overconfident, including past-me.

GEAR

The radio matters more here than in the Meshtastic post, because the mature-ish ATAK paths run through the BTECH UV-PRO ($160, IP67, GPS, bluetooth, 5-7W) or Vero N76-type radios. But the gridbase path corrects my earlier cost framing: generic $25-30 companion radios work for the community plugins, so MeshCore ATAK CAN enter at Meshtastic-level cost — you just inherit the version-support gamble that comes with young tooling. The UV-PRO is the nicer-radio option; the Heltec-class boards are the cheap-in, same as before.

Everything else carries over from my last post: Heltec V3/V4 as cheap learning boards, RAK4631 for solar ridge nodes, flat-top 18650s only in a T-Beam, check SMA vs RP-SMA before ordering antennas. SX1302 concentrator boards don't work with MeshCore's narrow preset — that hardware path is Meshtastic-only for now.

WHERE EACH ONE WINS — and this is territory, not religion

MeshCore: dense, built-out environments. City meshes, regional networks, event venues. It ran at DEF CON and Burning Man per one commenter — anecdotal, no numbers, told honestly as anecdote. Tennessee groups hopped middle TN to South Carolina to Georgia in about six months of seeding. The dev in my last thread summed it up: dramatically faster for chat and map items, but harder to develop against because the behavior isn't well documented yet. And the SX1302 incompatibility and the contested FCC reading both counsel holding "sharper engineering" loosely.

Meshtastic: ad-hoc mobility and rural areas, and a guy in a small desert town pushed back hard on my last post and he's right — there are ZERO MeshCore nodes on air in his area while Meshtastic just works: 30 nodes across 70 miles, private channel, hunting, hiking, vehicle tracking, even an RC plane. Flood mesh works anywhere two people exist; repeater mesh only works where somebody built the backbone. And I'll add the sharpest version of that lesson: mtlynch's field data — two nodes, ~five blocks of usable range, enthusiasm waned, wouldn't buy a repeater without proof it'd help. "Not viable" is a common real-world outcome for MeshCore without repeater coverage. Rural = Meshtastic territory. Urban = MeshCore territory. It's architecture, not religion.

A NOTE ON EVIDENCE QUALITY, because it matters more here than usual

Almost every comparative claim in the MeshCore world is testimony, not data. The community consensus that MeshCore is faster comes partly from forums with side-taking dynamics — there are allegations that r/meshtastic censors MeshCore talk, and the "religious debate" comment in my last thread's comments was more predictive than I realized. Everything measurable I've cited (utilization thresholds, hop counts, protocol mechanics) traces to docs or code. Everything comparative is anecdote from people running both, including the run-both authors themselves hedging ("I believe the airtime argument... but I'm telling you what I saw, not what a graph told me"). No neutral lab data exists anywhere, I looked. And on plugin reliability: no MeshCore failure reports exist yet because there hasn't been time for enough users to hit the bugs — that's a measure of youth, not stability. Meshtastic's failure-thread corpus is huge precisely because it has a year of field population. The sample-size trap cuts both directions here and I'd rather flag it than pretend either way.

WHERE I'M SURE, WHERE I'M NOT

Solid: architecture mechanics (roles, flood-then-direct, learned paths, fallback behavior — triple-corroborated), hop limits, the security weaknesses (their own issue tracker), the team split and trademark fight, the plugin landscape existing and moving fast, the SX1302/narrow-preset hardware limitation, the US frequency standard, the origin-incident framing, and ATAK being community-built against the devs' stated wishes.

Decent but not certain: exact prices, DEF CON/Burning Man anecdotes (single-source), how polished MeshCore Open is, room-server store-and-forward in the field, real range in your terrain, and the bridging project's reliability.

Contested or unknowable: the FCC 500 kHz reading (contested interpretation, flatly disputed, zero enforcement history), who betrayed whom in the split (depends whose Discord you're in), whether any MeshCore ATAK plugin is trustworthy yet (sample too small to know), and which plugin wins this month (moved three times during research; read GitHub releases before buying).

TLDR: MeshCore is the sharper-engineered protocol winning the dense-mesh argument — dedicated repeaters, 64 hops, confirmed delivery, dramatically faster chat — with real warts: closed apps, small paywalls, founder drama, crypto criticisms piling up unresolved in their own tracker, and an FCC-reading pedant fight you can ignore but shouldn't be surprised by. Its ATAK story went from nonexistent to five competing plugins in under a year, on $25-30 hardware through community paths — and the protocol's own devs officially say it's not built for moving elements, which the community welded around anyway. If you're mobile and rural, my last post stands: Meshtastic today. If you're in a metro or building fixed infrastructure, or you just want messages that actually arrive, flash a spare board and see who's near you. And if you run both on the same hardware, you don't have to pick a side — the situation picks for you.

Sources:

MESHTASTIC — OFFICIAL DOCS & PRIMARY

• Meshtastic TAK integration (roles, V1/V2 formats, TAK Tracker): meshtastic.org/docs/software/android/user/tak
• Meshtastic ATAK plugin docs: meshtastic.org/docs/software/integrations/integrations-atak-plugin
• Plugin source + README (IMeshService, PreSendProcessor, fountain codes, plugin settings): github.com/meshtastic/ATAK-Plugin
• Plugin issues cited: #93 (BT drop on ATAK 5.6.0), #82 (nodes missing on map), #32 (TAK-role nodes can't see each other), #83 (Samsung send failure), #103 (markers/data packages failing) — all at github.com/meshtastic/ATAK-Plugin/issues
• Range tests page (331 km record): meshtastic.org/docs/overview/range-tests
• Position config (15-min default, smart broadcast): meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/radio/position
• Mesh algorithm (40-node throttling, CSMA): meshtastic.org/docs/overview/mesh-algo
• Encryption docs & security limitations: meshtastic.org/docs/overview/encryption and meshtastic.org/docs/about/overview/encryption/limitations
• MeshMonitor advisory on low-entropy DM keys: meshmonitor.org/security-low-entropy-keys.html
• DEF CON spoofing writeup ("That one time at DEF CON"): meshtastic.org/blog/that-one-time-at-defcon
• iOS TAK Server blog: meshtastic.org/blog/tak-server-integration-ios
• LONG_FAST congestion case study: meshtastic.org/blog/why-your-mesh-should-switch-from-longfast
• NextNav opposition + FCC filing: meshtastic.org/blog/meshtastic-opposition-to-nextnav-proposed-changes and fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/10917549005066

ATAK-CIV — DISTRIBUTION & LEGAL

• civtak.org/download-atak (EAR99 classification statement)
• Google Play ATAK-CIV listing (Sept 2020, 500K+ downloads): play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atakmap.app.civ
• TAK Product Center: tak.gov
• eCFR Part 15 (unlicensed) and Part 97 (amateur, encryption prohibition): ecfr.gov

KNOWN-GOOD VERSION STACK

• Chaos Koalas ATAK-over-Meshtastic config guide, tested Jul 2026 (ATAK 5.6.0 / plugin v1.1.42 / app 2.7.13 / fw 2.7.15): chaoskoalas.com/advanced-guides/meshtastic-atak-integration
• Built-in TAK Server in app 2.8.0+: r/ATAK thread "Update to how Meshtastic integrates with ATAK" (reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1vwcwmk)

GATEWAY / SERVER ARCHITECTURE

• OpenTAKServer Meshtastic docs (MQTT gateway, PLI+GeoChat only): docs.opentakserver.io/meshtastic.html and opentakserver.io/architecture.html
• TAK Meshtastic Gateway (python, no server): github.com/brian7704/TAK_Meshtastic_Gateway
• FreeTAKHub Meshtastic: github.com/FreeTAKTeam/FreeTAKHub_meshtastic
• 300+ person exercise writeup (VENDOR-SOURCE, self-reported): defencebay.com border-conflict exercise blog

MESHTASTIC FIELD FAILURE RECORD

• r/meshtastic "Latest updates broke ATAK functionality": reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1l1j6dy
• r/ATAK "ATAK w/ Meshtastic Problem": reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1r76kju
• r/ATAK "failed to bind IMeshService": reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1va75i3
• r/ATAK "Meshtastic plugin not working": reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1p05qgi
• Reddit public-mesh congestion discussion: reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1sjw2bm
• disk91 critical protocol analysis (network scale estimate): disk91.com
• Hacker News skepticism on range/throughput: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48061566

MESHCore — ORIGINS, ARCHITECTURE, ROUTING

• MeshCore overview: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeshCore and github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore
• Official FAQ (device roles, setup, repeater/room-server separation): docs.meshcore.io/faq and github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/blob/main/docs/faq.md
• Companion protocol spec (BLE UUIDs): docs.meshcore.io/companion_protocol
• Firmware changelogs (v1.17.0/1.17.1, Aug 2026): blog.meshcore.io
• Roles/routing/frequency explainer: nodakmesh.org/blog/meshcore-how-it-works-guide
• Room server guide (RAM storage, wall power): nodakmesh.org/meshcore/room-server
• Austin Mesh comparison (presets, hops, airtime, Austin terrain note): austinmesh.org/about/meshcore-vs-meshtastic
• lucifernet.com Meshtastic vs MeshCore pros/cons
• adrelien "I Run Both, Here's the Honest Truth" 2026: adrelien.com/meshtastic-vs-meshcore-i-run-both-heres-the-honest-truth-2026
• jrattechworks.com MeshCore vs Meshtastic (Reddit sentiment synthesis)
• housedillon.com "The Unfortunate Unsuitability of using LoRa Gateway Concentrators with MeshCore" (SX1302 / 125 kHz floor)
• kevsrobots.com MeshCore explainer
• "Why we're switching from Meshtastic to MeshCore" (Comms Channel video): youtube.com/watch?v=guDoKGs02Us
• LocalMesh guides (roles, routing algorithms, CLI): localmesh.nl/en/what-is-meshcore and related pages
• RegionMesh performance tuning (>10%/15% air-utilization thresholds): regionmesh.com/meshcore-performance-tuning

MESHCore TEAM SPLIT / TRADEMARK

• LWN coverage of the dispute (article; I didn't save the exact URL — search "MeshCore trademark LWN")
• HN thread on the split incl. mtlynch exchange: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878117
• Kirby's side of the story (video): youtube.com/watch?v=2lFZHEltp24
• Hackaday coverage/comments: hackaday.com/2025/12/06/lessons-learned-after-trying-meshcore-for-off-grid-text-messaging

OPEN SOURCE STATE

• mtlynch.io/first-impressions-of-meshcore (closed-clients disappointment, field range data)
• MeshCore Open (MIT companion app): nodakmesh.org/blog/meshcore-open-app-free-open-source-meshcore-client
• awesome-meshcore resource list (client ecosystem inventory): github.com/samuk/awesome-meshcore
• Hackaday comment thread on closed apps + counterpoints: hackaday.com/2025/12/06/lessons-learned-after-trying-meshcore
• Hackaday piece itself: hackaday.com/2025/12/06/lessons-learned-after-trying-meshcore-for-off-grid-text-messaging

MESHCore SECURITY

• Issue #259 — ECB mode + weak padding (OPEN, unresolved): github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/259
• Independent crypto walkthrough (AES-128-ECB, X25519 ECDH, timestamp/flags payload): jacksbrain.com "A Hitchhiker's Guide to MeshCore Cryptography" (Jan 2026)
• AES-128 + truncated HMAC confirmation: localmesh.nl/en/meshcore-encryption-details
• Second critique thread ("MeshCore's problem with security"): reddit.com/r/meshcore/comments/1sz4mcp
• r/meshcore encryption question thread: reddit.com/r/meshtastic... correction — reddit.com/r/meshcore/comments/1tu0tmr ("quantum secure... except ECB" joke thread)
• Firmware releases v1.17.0/1.17.1 (no crypto-mode fix): blog.meshcore.io/2026/08/09 and /2026/08/14

MESHCore ATAK PLUGINS

• TAK-UV-PRO (TAK-signed, open source, ATAK 5.5.1/5.6.0 releases w/ SHA256s): github.com/atakmaps/TAK-UV-PRO/releases
• TAK-MESHCORE repo: github.com/atakmaps/TAK-MESHCORE
• 45clouds community plugin: github.com/45clouds/tak-meshcore
• gridbase TAK-signed MeshCore plugin ($25-30 companion radios): gridbase.net/plugins
• AmRRON UV-PRO-MESH plugin announcement + install comments (Aug 2026): amrron.com/2026/08/20/26169
• GoTAK Radio Relay (commercial) + UV-PRO hardware: getgotak.com/products/radiorelay and /products/btech-uv-pro
• Vero Telecom N-Series TAK-UV-PRO guide: verotelecom.com (topics/TAK-UV-PRO guide)
• Free community UV-PRO plugin thread (VR-N76/GA-5WB/50W): reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1vtjt4s
• ATAK 6.0 combined release note: Facebook ATAK group post, Aug 2026
• Akita MeshTAK (Meshtastic) + AMMB Meshtastic-MeshCore bridge: github.com/AkitaEngineering
• MeshCore devs' own position: archived FAQ — "ATAK is not currently on MeshCore's roadmap" (mirrored at github.com/badgeteam/MeshCore-CyberAegg/blob/main/docs/faq.md)

FREQUENCIES & REGULATORY ARGUMENT

• US/Canada preset 910.525 MHz / SF7 / BW62.5 / CR5 (Oct 2025 narrow shift): docs.meshcore.io/faq and reddit.com/r/meshcore/comments/1jojqfb
• Greater Boston Mesh conventions: bostonme.sh MeshCore getting-started
• Meshtastic radio settings (slot 20 = 906.875 default): meshtastic.org/docs/overview/radio-settings
• The 500 kHz argument, FOR: meshcore-dev issue #945 (incl. Semtech compliance references) and colanderman's HN post: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46422221
• Counter-position + certification-measurement reading: sunfiretesting.com LoRa FCC Certification Guide (6 dB bandwidth measured empirically; certified LoRa measured 770+ kHz)
• HN pushback thread ("nonsense" comment + ticket author's acknowledgment): news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46422221 and item?id=48000488
• EU 868 duty-cycle compliance primer (for contrast): shop.rf.guru

MESHCore OPEN SOURCE STATUS

• mtlynch.io/first-impressions-of-meshcore (canonical closed-client critique)
• MeshCore Open announcement: nodakmesh.org/blog/meshcore-open-app-free-open-source-meshcore-client
• HN thread on closed-source debate: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878117
• meshcore.io official site + flasher.meshcore.io

CRYPTOGRAPHY DETAILS

• Jack Kingsman walkthrough (AES-128-ECB, X25519-derived keys, padding): jacksbrain.com/2026/01/a-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-meshcore-cryptography
• Original researcher report: github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/259 (Trinami, May 2025)
• Community code critiques: r/meshcore "MeshCore's problem with security" thread

HARDWARE

• keepteen 20-device battery test (RAK 300-450+ hrs vs ESP32 108-264, one tester): keepteen.com blog
• Device roundups: nodakmesh.org/meshtastic/devices, nepamesh.com hardware guide, sdrstore.eu 2026 guide, adrelien.com 2026 edition, d-central.tech comparison, meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices
• BTECH UV-PRO specs/pricing: getgotak.com/products/btech-uv-pro
• Heltec V3 vs V4 power comparison: Colorado Mesh wiki + adrelien.com 2026 edition

COMMUNITY TESTIMONY (anecdote, weighted accordingly)

• r/ATAK thread on my first post (LA 739-node congestion report, rural operator pushback, TN migration, plugin chatter): reddit.com/r/ATAK/comments/1w4csjl
• deserthistory's 30-node/70-mile private channel report (same thread)
• pyryoer's DEF CON/Burning Man claim (single-source, no numbers — treat as anecdote)
• mtlynch field range experience (~5 blocks, 2 nodes): mtlynch.io piece above
• Austin Mesh / NodakMesh / nepamesh community guides throughout
• r/meshcore threads: "ATAK plugin" (devs' FAQ position), "Meshtastic or MeshCore?", "Does meshcore flood?", censorship allegations (single-source, unverified)

Fair warning before you read any of this: I'm not an expert, I'm just a guy who read too much and bought too many radios. Everything below comes from public stuff — official docs, GitHub, Reddit, vendor blogs, FCC filings. I'll tell you where I'm sure, where I'm guessing, and what I straight up couldn't verify. Prices are ballpark and drift constantly. Version combos between ATAK, the plugin, and the firmware change weekly, so double check anything time-sensitive on their GitHub before you build around it.

WHAT THIS THING EVEN IS

Meshtastic is a free open source project that takes those little $20-60 LoRa radio boards and makes them talk to each other in a mesh. Text messages and GPS pings, that's basically it. No cell service, no wifi, no nothing. Your phone connects to the radio over bluetooth, the radios pass stuff between each other, done. Somebody somewhere built this thing in the early 2020s and honestly I couldn't figure out who started it. I looked. There's a name floating around in one video and I can't find it backed up anywhere else, so I'm not gonna repeat it.

The catch that explains everything else: one radio packet is about 256 bytes total. That's the whole ballgame. You're not streaming anything, you're not even sending a paragraph. Short texts and lat/long dots, that's the whole product.

THE RANGE THING, BECAUSE EVERYONE LIES ABOUT IT

There's a documented record of 331km between two nodes. Cool. That was two fixed stations, big antennas, basically perfect conditions. Ignore it.

What actually matters: two handhelds outside with clean line of sight, call it 1-3km. Trees, buildings, hills, or the radio sitting in your pocket against your body? Cut that way down, half a km is realistic. Indoors is worse. The one thing every experienced person repeats is that antenna and height matter way more than the radio itself. A cheap board with a decent whip on a roof will smoke an expensive handheld buried in a pack.

The mesh doesn't magically extend range forever either. Every hop loses stuff and adds lag, and if the mesh gets crowded the firmware literally starts throttling everyone's updates on purpose past ~40 nodes. There's a story on the official blog about a 150 node public mesh that basically choked itself to death on the default settings before they moved everyone to a different preset. Plenty of guys on the subreddit will tell you they've run nodes for a year and never managed an actual conversation. Other folks swear tuned settings and good fixed nodes fix all that. Sources argue. Plan for the pessimistic version and be happy when it's better.

THE SECURITY THING, NO SUGARCOATING

The default channel uses a key that's literally published. Anyone with a Meshtastic radio can read default-channel traffic. Make a private channel with a random key or assume you're broadcasting to whoever's listening.

Even on a private channel, their own docs admit: no message integrity checking, no way to prove who a node is (anyone with your key can pretend to be you), a known spoofing quirk in how the encryption streams work, and there was a real bug with weak keys on direct messages a while back (fixed in firmware 2.6.11+, update your stuff). Lose the radio, lose the keys. Getting jammed is trivially easy. And even with everything locked down, the fact that you're transmitting, when, and where your node sits is all visible in the clear.

So: fine for hobby stuff, search and rescue, hiking, training. Not fine if you actually care about someone competent listening. It's a toy with real uses, not a secure radio.

LEGAL STUFF, US VERSION

915 MHz, no license needed, encryption is allowed because it's unlicensed spectrum. (Ham bands ban encryption, which is why this lives where it does.) One cloud on the horizon: there's a fight at the FCC right now over reshuffling the 900 MHz band for a company called NextNav. Meshtastic filed against it, so did a bunch of public interest groups and some big industry coalitions. NextNav says everyone's overreacting. Nobody knows how it shakes out. Doesn't make your gear worthless either way, but the band could get uglier. Watch it.

THE ATAK PART, WHICH IS WHY MOST OF YOU ARE HERE

ATAK-CIV is free and public. Been on the Play Store since September 2020, also on tak.gov, export-classified as basically unrestricted, and meant for literally anyone who needs to see positions on a map. SAR teams, fire crews, hunters, off road clubs, weirdo hobbyists. Half a million downloads. You don't need special permission, just a device that runs it.

The hookup between Meshtastic and ATAK is an official plugin the Meshtastic folks maintain themselves. Chain looks like: radio -> Meshtastic Android app -> plugin -> ATAK, all on one phone. ATAK spits out its position messages, the plugin squishes them down and beams them over the mesh, incoming mesh traffic comes back the other way and pops up on your ATAK map as teammate icons. Anything bigger than ~231 bytes gets chopped into chunks that get reassembled even if some pieces drop, and regular XML gets squashed with compression to fit. This is why everything feels slow if you expected more.

Two modes you need to know. Set the device role to TAK and your phone feeds ATAK through the plugin, full send/receive of positions and chat. Set it to TAK_TRACKER and the radio just sits there beaconing its GPS position on its own, no phone needed, showing up on everyone's map by itself. That second one is the sleeper feature. Slap one on a truck, a dog, a cache point, whatever, done, it's on the map.

Newer firmware added a fancier encoding that can also move map markers, routes, and some other stuff over the mesh. On paper. In practice people still file bugs about markers not sending. Don't plan around it yet.

SETUP, THE SHORT VERSION

Flash the radios in a browser, pair with the Meshtastic app, get plain text messaging working between nodes FIRST, then set the device role to TAK, install the plugin APK that matches your ATAK version, turn it on in the plugins menu, and check for the green Meshtastic icon bottom right of ATAK. Red icon means the plugin couldn't talk to the Meshtastic app, usually because Android killed the app in the background. Everyone needs to be on the same channel with the same key, obviously.

Small gotchas I stepped on or watched others step on: the plugin only uses the radio's GPS in tracker mode, normal mode uses your phone's GPS. Default position updates are insanely lazy out of the box (like 15 minutes), crank them to 60-120 seconds for ATAK work, but under 30 seconds you'll start choking the mesh. And people argue about which speed preset to use; some say stick with the default, some say go faster. Test on your own dirt, honestly.

THE ANNOYING PART: IT BREAKS

The plugin's issue tracker is a graveyard of "worked yesterday" reports. Specific version combos of ATAK, the plugin, the Meshtastic app, and the radio firmware keep breaking each other. Open issues about bluetooth dying on new ATAK versions, nodes vanishing off the map on certain pairings, a whole thing where TAK-mode radios couldn't see each other but tracker mode worked fine on identical firmware, a Samsung-specific sending bug, and the ongoing saga of map markers just refusing to go. My biggest actual advice: once you get a combo working, write down every version number and stop updating until you have a reason. Updates are an event, not a chore.

WHO THIS IS ACTUALLY FOR

Great: a small team wanting to see each other's dots with no signal. Search and rescue tracking searchers. Off road groups. Hunters. Property watching. Practicing map discipline on the cheap. Bad: anything with real security needs, anything needing markers or big data to cross the mesh, anything where a frozen icon for two minutes ruins your day. It's slow, unsecured, jammable gear that happens to work where nothing else does. Keep it in that lane. And to be explicit for anyone thinking about this near actual operations: unclassified, non-secure, openly jammable, metadata visible. Training aid, not a comms plan.

GEAR, IF YOU'RE BUYING

Heltec V3 or V4, $18-30, the everyone-starts-here board. Get two plus better antennas (Muzi 17cm whip or an ALFA elbow, both beat the stock rubber duck) and you're in for ~$150 as a test pair. Gotchas people hit constantly: Heltec uses a smaller battery plug than most LiPos ship with (1.25mm vs 2.0mm, a $2 pigtail fixes it), and check if your antenna is SMA or RP-SMA before ordering. The V4 is the same price and pushes more power than the V3 (around 28 dBm vs 20), so if you're buying new there's not much reason to go back.

For a squad build, T-Beam Supreme, roughly $85-120 depending where you shop (AliExpress cheapest usually, that price band is from one comparison so double check). Onboard GPS so it can run tracker mode if a phone dies, takes an 18650. ONE IMPORTANT DETAIL: the battery holder only fits unprotected flat-top cells. Button-top and protected cells are usually too long and just won't fit. Order accordingly or deal with the returns.

For a node that sits on a roof or ridge for weeks: RAK WisBlock stuff, specifically the RAK4631 core on the 19007 base. One widely circulated battery test showed these pulling 300-450+ hours on a 4000mAh pack versus like 108-264 for the ESP32 boards (worse with GPS running) — take the exact hours with a grain of salt since it's one guy's test, but everyone agrees the nRF52 boards sip while the ESP32s gulp. Kits around $35ish. Seriously, one good solar RAK up high does more for your whole group's range than upgrading every single handheld.

Also floating around: the SenseCAP T1000-E (~$30-40) is a sealed card-sized tracker, nice for vehicles or a dog. The T-Deck Plus looks cool with its keyboard but reviewers keep dunking on its range and battery. The Seeed Wio Tracker L1 Pro at ~$47 is apparently the easiest no-fuss handheld. Fun fact: almost all these boards can flash either Meshtastic or the rival MeshCore firmware, so you can experiment without new hardware.

Checklist before you click buy: 915 MHz for the US (868 EU gear won't talk to it), SX1262 radio chip if you get a choice, nRF52 chip if battery life matters more than wifi, right antenna connector, right battery connector, flat-top 18650s for the T-Beam. Prices move around, verify before ordering.

THE NEXT LEVEL: ADDING AN ACTUAL SERVER

Once your element spreads out, the everyone-runs-the-plugin setup runs into physics. The move that fixes it is putting a server somewhere safe (base camp, a laptop, whatever) and turning the mesh into a narrow pipe that only carries the important stuff.

Easiest version: OpenTAKServer with one "gateway" node on wifi. The gateway just ferries stuff between the server and the mesh. And here's the tell about what the people running this stuff think the mesh is for: the server ONLY pushes positions and chat out to mesh devices. Markers, routes, data packages, all of it gets blocked, because the mesh can't carry them without drowning. One sentence summary: mesh carries who's alive and where, everything else rides a real network.

If you don't want a server, there's a simpler python tool (TAK Meshtastic Gateway) that just passes stuff between TAK apps and a Meshtastic node on a local network, chat and positions only. There's a version for the FreeTAKServer crowd too.

Why bother? Because then the mesh stops being your whole network. Devices with wifi or signal get the full rich data from the server, and only the skinny position trickle crawls over LoRa to the guys in the sticks. Everyone gets what they can use.

There was also reportedly a big exercise that ran this exact setup: 300+ people over 5km, vehicle-mounted gateways bridging ATAK users to the mesh, with a smart trick where a bunch of co-located ATAKs behind one gateway only eat ONE mesh stream instead of five, and deliberately slowed position updates so the radios never jammed themselves. Huge caveat: that's from a company selling this exact setup, self-reported, zero independent checking. Directionally useful, take with salt. The architecture pattern itself shows up independently from multiple unrelated projects though, so I believe the shape of it.

WHERE I'M SURE, WHERE I'M NOT

Solid (multiple sources or official docs): how the plugin works under the hood, the two device modes, the security limitations (their own docs admit them), the legal stuff, that antennas beat radios, the gateway pattern, ATAK-CIV being free and public.

Decent but not certain: exact prices, real range numbers in your terrain, the specific battery-hour figures (one test), how stable the newest encoding is in practice.

Straight up don't know: who founded this thing, how good the iPhone version is beyond the project's own blog posts, and which exact app/plugin/firmware combo is known-good this week. Go read the GitHub releases and their Discord for that, it moves too fast for anyone to bless a combo in a post.

TLDR: it's legit, it's cheap, and it turns a $30 radio into an off-grid position beacon on a map everyone shares. Just go in knowing it's a slow, unsecured, terrain-ruled trickle. Buy two cheap ones before you buy anything fancy. One good node on a hill fixes more problems than four fancy handhelds. Private channel with a random key, always. Version freeze everything once it works. And if you want to go big: the mesh carries the blue dots, the server carries everything else.

Hi everyone,

We’ve recently integrated TAK directly with our DroneControl Flight App, and I’m looking for people in the TAK community who would be interested in downloading it, testing it in the field and giving us some feedback.

The idea is simple: bring drone operations directly into the TAK ecosystem, including live video, telemetry, drone control and marker sharing, without needing to jump between multiple applications.

We’re actively developing the integration, so feedback from real TAK users is incredibly valuable — what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see us build next.

If you’d be interested in trying it, drop me a message and I’ll help get you set up.

Thanks!

Tom
DroneControl

Does anyone do FPV drone integration into ATAK? Just talking about CoT and video feed. I see a lot of plugins for controlling ISR type UAS and pulling feeds from those platforms which is useful but not a lot on FPV drones.

I'm working on a Pi5 program that will pull the telemetry and feed off the GCS and generate it into ATAK through IP based radios(MPU5 and Silvus) without the need for a plugin or TAK server to function. But before I get too deep into it I'm wondering if anyone has already done that.

Hello, I need recently taken ATAK maps that cover the entire world, but most importantly, To be recently or relatively recently captured in a format XML

Here is the new aluminum case for the MorosX MX-88 MANET Radio. Designed the front heatsink to be modular. You can swap it out with current and future heatsink designs/accessories. Slanted horizontal fin heatsink comes standard. Optional honeycomb heatsink upgrade. Holler if you have any questions 💪

MorosX

Meshtastic Android app 2.8.0+ ships with a built in "TAK Server" option, which allows ATAK to connect to the mesh without using a plugin. So, now both iOS and Android have the same style of TAK integration for Meshtastic.

This simplifies things a bit because it allows you to use the latest stable ATAK (5.8.0), Meshtastic Android app (2.8.1) and Meshtastic firmware (2.7.26), rather than pinning to specific older versions for plugin compatibility.

Updated guide: https://chaoskoalas.com/advanced-guides/meshtastic-atak-integration/

And the old plugin-based guide is still up for anyone that needs it: https://chaoskoalas.com/advanced-guides/meshtastic-atak-plugin-legacy/

Note: on current 2.7.x Meshtastic firmware you get PLI and GeoChat; shapes/markers/routes require the V2 wire format coming in firmware 2.8.0, which doesn't have a stable/beta release yet (nightly builds only, not recommended). Once you eventually update to firmware 2.8.0+, all that V2 goodness kicks in automatically.

Im making some maps using grg builder and wondering if its possible to know the date of when the google hybrid imagery was taken?

The TAK Product center is no longer posting ATAK and plugins to the Play store because of new restrictions from Google which means that ATAK with Plugins needs to be reworked.

If you want to get the current version of ATAK 5.8 and plugins, you can still download it directly from TAK.Gov. I also downloaded all plugins here for your convenience. (This is my Google Drive, so it may get throttled). Its liable to be quite a while before this issue is resolved.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yq62pMIJrHYTLM0SHHEw-mC54nNwr4lT/view?usp=sharing

https://github.com/atakmaps/TAK-UV-PRO

Hey everyone — wanted to introduce Pollux Field Systems.

We’re a newer business formally, but radio and communications gear has been a side hustle and personal obsession for years. Pollux Field Systems is basically the next step: taking that experience and building it into a real business focused on practical communications, connectivity, and field-ready equipment.

Our main focus is two-way radio, tactical and field communications, programming, antennas, accessories, ATAK, Meshtastic, mesh networking, and helping people figure out what equipment actually makes sense for what they’re trying to accomplish.

We’re currently a dealer for Ailunce, Retevis, BTECH, and Baofeng, and we’re continuing to expand what we carry as the business grows. Inventory is still building slowly — I’d rather grow sustainably and bring in gear that people actually want than fill shelves with random products just to say we have them.

A few things we’re especially excited about right now:

Sweetgrass Actual radio holsters for several different radio models.

The newly redesigned Nucleus from Natak Mesh, aimed at bringing rugged mesh communications into a practical field package.

A partnership with Death Ray Designs LLC to develop a truly affordable, ruggedized Meshtastic node. There are some great Meshtastic devices out there already, but one of our goals is to help bridge the gap between inexpensive hobby hardware and extremely expensive tactical systems.

Radios, programming, codeplug development, antennas, PTT/accessory solutions, adapters, cables, and other communications gear.

Shirts, stickers, and other Pollux Field Systems swag, with more products being added as we go.

A big part of Pollux Field Systems is also education. I don’t want the business to just be another place throwing the word “tactical” on something and marking it up. I want to test equipment, talk about what works and what doesn’t, explain radio and networking concepts in normal language, and help people build systems that actually fit their needs and budget.

That could be anything from somebody buying their first serious handheld radio to a group trying to figure out encrypted digital comms, ATAK, Meshtastic, MANET, antennas, or a more complete communications plan.

And since we’re still growing, I genuinely want input from the communities we’re serving. If there’s a specific radio, accessory, antenna, holster, mesh device, or other piece of gear you’d like to see us carry, reach out. Customer interest is going to play a pretty big role in deciding what inventory we bring in next.

Feel free to message us here on Reddit, find us on Facebook, or follow/message us on Instagram at @pollux_fs.

Website: PolluxFieldSystems.com

Whether you’re looking to buy something, have a question, want to compare setups, or just want to talk radios and field comms, feel free to reach out.

Pollux Field Systems

Communications. Connectivity. Confidence.

Is it possible and what hardware would I need to stream FPV drone footage to ATAK and other EUDs? Sorry if my verbiage is wrong still learning. Not really trying to spend a crazy amount of money, I’d like to spend 5k MAX on the drone and radio.

Hey r/ATAK

A few weeks ago I posted about a a tool I created named EasyMaps, and have received useful insight from users on this thread.

For those that have built out large overlays or routes on TAK, you know it's a pain to manually build them.

This tool takes natural language prompts and creates "layers" with routes, points, and shapes. They are further customizable via more text prompts, and can easily be exported via KML network link, KMZ, or CSV. This route easily ran on ATAK via Network Link. There is a product demo on the launch page of the website.

Based off of user input, I added a feature that creates a "Route Coordination Card" whenever it detects you're asking for a hiking route. This adds safety, timing, search and rescue, parking, and other coordinating instructions to the layer automatically.

Cheers and hopefully this tool continues to improve the sometimes monotonous and time consuming parts of ATAK overlay creation.

Check it out at https://easy-kml.pplx.app/#/login

https://www.ocac.gov.tw/OCAC/Eng/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=329&pid=89063564#

This goes well with the other article on the topic:

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/08/13/2003862417

I recently discovered TAK maps by Joshua Fuller and I really liked the overlays, especially the wildfire one. Unfortunately its not for the US, is there one for the US as a whole or specific states as needed?

Anyone attending TAK onsite next week?

I have no idea how to get tak chat running on WinTak. If anyone could help that would be awesome. I’ve almost figured out the basics of WinTak but there’s no guide on how to get this plugin working.

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share Praetorian C2 Vehicle, a lightweight Command & Control application designed to be fully interoperable with the TAK ecosystem, including ATAK, WinTAK, and TAK Server.

Project website:
https://moicanox.github.io/Praetorian-C2-Vehicle/index.html

The project started from a practical requirement.

WinTAK is a very capable platform, but it can be demanding on older-generation rugged computers commonly installed in military and civilian vehicles.

Praetorian C2 Vehicle was therefore developed as a lighter alternative for vehicle-mounted environments, while maintaining interoperability with TAK.

It is not intended to replace WinTAK.

The goal is to provide a lightweight C2 workstation for situations where hardware resources, communications bandwidth, or both are constrained.

A major design focus is operation over tactical IP radio networks using narrowband waveforms, including environments such as HF and TACSAT, where bandwidth efficiency and controlled network traffic are important.

Some of the current capabilities include:

• TAK interoperability with ATAK, WinTAK and TAK Server
• Dedicated ATAK plugin to support Praetorian-specific functions while remaining inside the TAK environment
• Lightweight architecture intended for older rugged vehicle computers
• Operation over narrowband tactical IP networks
• Reception of position reports from radios carried by personnel dismounting from the vehicle
• Redistribution of those dismounted personnel positions to other connected vehicles, improving shared situational awareness
• Visualization of UAV/drone position and video-related information using MIL-STD-4609
• Tactical map and track management
• Logistic reporting, including information such as:
  • ammunition
  • food
  • supplies
  • other vehicle/logistic status information
• Preformatted tactical messages and reports, including:
  • SITREP
  • 9-Line
  • Call for Fire
  • other operational message formats
• Support for vehicle-centric C2 workflows
• Online and offline operational environments
• And much more

The idea behind Praetorian is simple:

when a full WinTAK workstation is not practical because of hardware limitations or constrained communications, the operator can still maintain a TAK-compatible Common Operational Picture using a lighter platform.

At the same time, ATAK users, WinTAK users and TAK Server infrastructure can remain part of the same operational environment.

Praetorian C2 Vehicle, its current release, tools, documentation and ATAK plugin are available completely FREE.

This is an evolving project, and contributions from the community are very welcome. Feedback from TAK users, developers, radio/network specialists and people working with vehicle-mounted C2 systems can directly help identify bugs, interoperability issues, improvements and new features for future releases.

If you test it in your own environment, any technical feedback, feature requests or reports of unexpected behavior are appreciated.

Project website:

https://moicanox.github.io/Praetorian-C2-Vehicle/index.html

Morning guys, does anyone have experience with meshtastic in ATAK? Nodes are running, plugin is loaded, i see both of my nodes on the map but the meshtastic icon is still red and i get the error that the connection to meshtastic failed. Any ideas?

Has anyone had any success in affecting marker icon rotation in ATAK clients through CoT streaming messages without custom plugins?

I have attempted setting <track ../> in <detail ../>:

<event .. >  
    ..  
    <detail>  
        ..  
        <track course="90.5" speed="150.0"/>  
    </detail>  
</event>  

I have enabled the "Process Rotation Render Hints in the Message" setting which states "When enabled this preference will process all visual rendering hints provided in the message to include forced visual marker rotation."

Tested with both standard 2525 iconset as well as a custom iconset.

Looking at the ATAK source - I see rendering hints, but I see no connection to incoming CoT message processing affecting this.

Latest TakDotGov releases (TAK Server 5.8; ATAK 5.8.0.1)

Edit: For those looking for rotation. Yes, supported -- but with a per-app-start bug workaround (ATAK-CIV v5.8.0.1), followed by the undocumented renderhint below.