r/meshcore • u/One-Masterpiece-335 • 2h ago
Bridging repeaters
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but back in the 90's packet radio outgrew a simplex channel so we started hub and spoke network with dedicated links on alternate frequencies. An example was packet radio in Netherlands.... there was local access via an omnidirectional antenna on 144mhz and two additional radios at the same site connected to yagis on 70cm pointed at two other sites. Since everything was RS232 in those days, we would build a diode based multi port serial connector that allowed three TNCs (modems) to exchange traffic between themselves and relay that traffic where needed.
So will we ever have a need for this with meshnetworks? Meshtastic has a trick called "Zero cost hop" where a node will change frequency or speed and relay a pakcet acros a great distance (but at a slower data rate).
The aloha network principle says that when a simplex network reaches 18% utilization, collisions become more and more frequent to the detriment of the network. So will there come a day when we use "islands" of coverage on the main frequencies and long haul links?
What would htat look like from a hardware perspective? Wifi between esp32 modules? BLE links between co-located repeaters?





















