I’m building a 868 mesh around the Kadıköy area (first stationary node running in Erenköy) and some of my stationary nodes will be in Kınalı island(which has quite a big reach).
Hello,
I’m thinking about the same especially for emergency communication after expected earthquake. I see some HAM radio operators working on merging AREDN (check this youtube channel for more) with meshtastic but their preference is 433 Mhz. I’m going to order Heltec devices but confused about which frequency to choose. How did you decide on 868?
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433 is incredibly crowded and not only that most devices that use the 433 band broadcast without listening (car, garage, smart light remotes) in a crowded city those devices could mess up comms.
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The Fresnel zone for 433 is bigger so it needs a bigger opening between devices. Which again in a city is harder to get.
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The helium net uses 868 too so there are a lot of second hand 868 antennas on the market and from ı’ve heard the helium net is dying (not sure though) so the prices will prob continue to go lower because of the shrinking demand.
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868 devices also cover 915, that basically means supporting EU and US and newer devices are more likely to be created to be used in that area. (eg. Nano series devices, Station G1)
Hope that explains things 
@Mertszr02 thank you for the details. What will you use as hardware for nodes/stations? I’m also thinking about creating nodes/stations around Istanbul, I believe I can set up in 4 locations now (2 around Camlica, Alemdag, Şile). BTW I’m newbie about both amateur radio and Meshtastic and asking these here openly to create starting point for those who will search about Meshtastic and Istanbul nodes like us.
hi guys im really surprised to see this thread because iv been thinking about building a mesh around istanbul (earthquake) for a year now and i was pretty discouraged because im new to the radio stuff and it would be really expensive to cover my interest area which is quite big (pendik to başakşehir to beylikdüzü) and im a student so i dont have much money to spend. i was watching a youtube tutorial for using ATAK with meshtastic 2 mins ago then i checked if there were any sellers for the device and i saw your posts which was a big surprise. but i have a lot of questions like which device to buy or can i hook a solar powered node to the çamlıca tower would that be legal things like that.
Np, happy to help
I started with 2 lora32 boards and 1 t-beam from amazon TR.
Then I bought a few T3S3 boards from Lilygo but the customs process was kinda janky/stressful. They arrived recently.
I’ll prob buy a few wisblock meshtastic kits in the near future.
if you are high up in Çamlıca you will most likely be able to reach my Kınalı node(not operational yet)
I have close friends in both Başakşehir and Beylikdüzü so I would love to extend my mesh there.
I suggest starting with a basic setup by powering the nodes with the city power. For anyone new, there are already a ton of things to learn so adding more potential problems (solar and battery management)
Yani fazla uçmayın gençler 
en azından şimdilik…
Lastly my suggestion is buying any node (868 ofc so that we can communicate at some point)
I think AmazonTR still has some lora nodes, they are not cheap but its pretty much guarantied to arrive so basically less stress. Try to buy 2 or 3 nodes as soon as possible and start learning then you can decide for yourselves how you wanna proceed.
Btw if you wanna meet up and talk, you can write to me from here. Also I might buy the nodes in bulk and sell em. Thought I did not decide on that yet.
From Ortakoy experimenting with 2 nodes. I am operating on 433 and I am building these nodes myself. It was cheaper and better if you guys want to scale it. Ready made here in Turkey are heck expensive. All you need esp32 250 TL and lora 02 with adapter board 250 TL. For power you need to figure it out
Edit: stock antenna probably shit so that’s an extra 100-200 tl
I used a similar setup a 6 years ago with an arduino and ra-02 (433) but those are 18 dbm (63mw)
the t-beam and lora32 boards I bought as a starting point uses SX1276 lora chips[20 dbm (100 mw) ]
and my new T3S3 boards use SX1262 chips [22 dbm (158 mw)]
so basically there is quite a big power output difference (also receiver differences) between those devices besides I didn’t see any 868 ra02 chips. I don’t think I’ll ever switch to 433 for meshtastic use.
I still have my 433 ra-02 boards so I might try other Lora projects with them some day.
maybe some satellite reception.
edit: AI-thinker apparently has other boards mainly RA-01SCH which seems to support 868 and is 22dbm.
433 max power without license 12db
While 868 is at 20db anything more would illegal. Yes 868 better at penetration with 433 have a better range in open areas. Lots of variables here that can effect the distance. Good luck with the project hopefully one day we can cross frequency and talk :))
That’s good too see everyone was waiting for this thread. I ordered Heltec v3 and will try it soon in Antalya and Istanbul. If everything will be fine, I’ll install 3 or 4 always-on nodes in Istanbul soon. I will use 868 Mhz first. Will also install 433 nodes as well. I will announce this nodes and GPS locations.
And maybe we should add Turkish version of our messages and Turkish speaking people can find more easily. If you think the same, please add Turkish translation of your message below your English one. It will be great if we can reach more people and create more nodes before foreseen Istanbul earthquake.
Türkçe: Herkesin bu konuyu beklediğini görmek güzel. Heltec v3 siparişi verdim ve yakında Antalya ve İstanbulda deneyeceğim. Her şey yolunda giderse, 3 veya 4 sürekli açık cihazı Istanbulda kuracağım. Başlangıçta 868 Mhz ile başlayacağım. 433 Mhz nodelar da ekleyeceğim. Bunları ve GPS koordinatlarını burada duyuracağım.
Konuyla ilgili olanlar bu foruma Türkçe de olsa yazarsa çok iyi olur. Beklenen İstanbul depremi öncesi ne kadar yayabilirsek o kadar iyi olur.
Merhaba arkadaşlar, Türkiye’de kimsenin olmadığını düşünüyordum 2 gün önce denk geldim bu projeye, aliexpressten hemen T3S3 sipariş ettim umarım gümrükte sorun çıkmaz, Ankara’da şuan kimse yok iş yerime ve evime bir cihaz koyabilirim, cihaz geldiğinde kurcalayıp bireyler öğrendikten sonra 2-3 cihazı alıp sabit hale getirmeyi düşünüyorum. Umarım daha fazlada yaygınlaşır, node için ayrı bir öneriniz varsa beklerim.
I don’t see it as a solid solution for the earthquake and also preparing for such a thing gives the vibe of I want it to come to me lol. Anyway, You can also contribute to GitHub by translating for example the IOS app, I am a Turkish citizen by naturalization so my Turkish is not the best.
I built 2 handheld nodes testing them with my girlfriend for now. and I am planning to keep one at home. I am running 433 Mhz I got around 1.9KM. I just struggle to find a high place to put it. Most people will not welcome you putting a device on their roof they don’t know what it does. So if you guys have a connection I am happy to work with you.
If you have any questions we will be happy to answer. Some people here run 868mhz I am more of 433mhz. It would be nice also if you set up yours with mqtt to have it show up on the map so others can join you as well.
you can find some of the guides I wrote on my blog
Hello Adrelien, definitely not a solid solution but trying to increase chances for quick communication. I hope it will never be needed but situation doesn’t seem bright after what we have seen on Hatay/Kahramanmaras case. Anyway, we will see it’s capabilities, I want to have experience with it first to comment more.
I’ll check Github and will try to contribute, also your website is a great resource for us. Would you like to publish them as Turkish? Or I’m thinking about opening a website to promote Meshtastic in Turkish, can I translate and use them with attribution?
I understand your point of view, I think a real finished more polished product should be considered for emergencies like walkie talkie. But hey test it out maybe you can come up with something.
For a Turkish website, I am more than happy to set up a subdirectory for you at my domain. You can go ahead and use my content and translate it and keep all the proceeds as well if you decide to monetize. DM me if you are interested and we can work together on something.
I am personally using VHF/UHF/HF radios but these all requires license and generally -in Turkey standarts- expensive gear for most. So Meshtastic looks -but not sure- easy to use with any smart phone, doesn’t require license, I hope it will work well, let’s see soon.
We can also publish under your website, I am just thinking about creating something like meshtasticturkiye.org (even though not sure if Meshtastic team will be okay with this) to promote this and provide some good starting point for Turkish speakers. Monetization is completely out of my scope and have no plans about it. I am just interested in promoting it for emergency use. I will DM you my contact information and being in touch would be great.
Merhabalar, Meshtastic ve Lora cihazların Türkiye’de yayıldığını görmek gerçekten sevindirici. Bu tarz cihazlar hakkında konuşmak ve belkide gelecekte çok daha yaygınlaşacak bu uğraş için insanların bir araya gelmesini sağlayacak bir platform oluşturmak istedim. Discord linkini aşağıya bırakıyorum, tüm arkadaşlarımızı bekliyorum
Hi everyone!
I just came across with “Meshtastic” few days ago but couldn’t find time to read about it until today.
It’s really exciting for me since I’m interested with terms LoRa and decentralized. After few minutes of reading docs, it’s clear for me I’m going to host few nodes at Istanbul
My profession is software engineering. I’m little bit familiar with ESP8266, Arduino Uno, Raspberry PI but still trying to decide about hardware. I believe I can host nodes at 4 different ilçe easily. All the locations has UPS (I prefer solar power if that’s possible.)
I can’t place them in a short time window but planning to place them during summer. Let’s plan hardware together so my participation won’t be seperated by the community.