#meshcore

After perusing the various inter-related legislation and the new astoundingly broad amended legislation, it seems there's a significant loophole for content being provided over radio waves.

I strongly recommend all those concerned about privacy and the increasing wave of global web surveillance to investigate alternatives like Lora radios using Meshcore or Meshtastic. In essence, it's a long-distance, licence-free, cell-provider and internet-free radio communication network using little radio devices you can purchase for as little as $10USD (although the average cost for me has been about A$60 for pre-built ones with a battery.) They're like a walkie textie, so don't have the capacity to send audio or images, but aside from the upfront hardware cost messaging everyone in your local mesh network is completely free forever. The vast majority of hardware options can be run on solar using a single 18650 battery (or other small rechargeable battery option of your choice) and can be run on solar because they don't use much power at all. Depending on how deep you want to get into it, both Meshtastic and Meshcore offer encrypted communication and options to either transmit or obscure/remove your location as you wish.

Although Lora radios are more distance-limited than other options like ham radio which enable you to talk to other licenced radio operators globally, it also costs far less to get into and doesn't require doing the certification. I do think doing the basic ham qualification is a good idea regardless given the current geopolitical climate, but the fact that you don't need to do any of that is a huge bonus of Meshtastic/Meshcore hardware. Plus, even with these tiny radios I regularly have conversations with people 150+km away, and others have reached mesh radios 300km+ away.

Starting 4-22-2026, we will be live streaming our weekly nets. This will give unlicensed\curious individuals the opportunity to "peek behind the curtain" of radio and get a feel for how things flow. New and not ready to key up? Our nets are laid back, newbie friendly, and inclusive. Listen along on YT and see if we are a group that fits for you. Don't use Allstar, Echolink, YSF, or DMR? Yup, the livestream is for you as well. We will be monitoring the stream chat and will relay online check ins to the net. Subscribe so you can be notified of upcoming streams. Our channel

Many may be familiar with the Meshtastic network which uses cheap LoRa radios (usually linked to a mobile phone app) to send direct text messages or post text messages to a public or private group. This type of network is very useful for direct commucations with neighbours across your city. It becomes even more useful if the cellular or Internet links go down, as this works independently of them.

MeshCore is a newer type of such a peer-to-peer radio network. It works in the same license-free bands, is also text based chat to friends, or to public and private channels. The same radios can be utilised that Mestastic uses, so no need to buy new hardware.

MeshCore’s differences come in with its more efficient network routing protocol (direct messaging follows more efficient routing paths so less traffic), it has more solid read receipt confirmations, and has up to 64 network hops (versus 7 hops for Meshtastic). By default MeshCore also does not switch on telemetry for everything, so overall there is more bandwidth for actual messaging.

Meshtastic has been going for a while in Cape town and in May 2026 there are just over 216 unique Meshtastic nodes that my own radio has picked up. But since we started testing MeshCore in Cape Town this week, it has grown from 7 or so nodes to 16. We are still attrracting new users and planning a few repeater high sites so that new users will be able to connect to others across the city.

If the Meshtastic high site repeater on Du Toit’s Kloof mountains is switched over to MeshCore, we’ll also have Worcester linked to Cape Town.

I’ve not been on MeshCore for even a week yet, but I have switched my rooftop node over to MeshCore, and flashed it as a room server. That node now not only performs a repeater function, but also runs a small text based bulletin board where anyone can leave messages for others to read later.

What we really need in Cape Town now, is a few users on higher lying ground, that can run a repeater node, to help with the coverage. One user has a spare solar powered radio node that can be used for this purpose, and is willing to lend it out for that purpose.

MeshCore is not only useful for making local contact with your neighbours and fellow citizens, but it can also perform a vital role during extended communications blackouts, where these solar powered nodes will still keep communications working across the city. Cape Town’s communications are generally very reliable, but just between 2025 and 2026 we’ve had some more rural towns that have had weather related communications blackouts of up to a week at a time (that means zero cellphones and no WhatsApp). Networks like Meshtastic and MeshCore are disaster proof as they do not rely on any central service that can go offline, nor can they be censored by government.