I have ordered three units and another person where I live has just ordered two more. We live on a small island on the Canadian west coast that seems to get hit with stronger and stronger storms and our power can go out for weeks. Our cell phone coverage is not that great to start with and during the storms, it usually goes out. We have about 65 ham operators who practice emergency comms self-included, we use APRS to track road closures and down power lines. We have ordered 915mhz units because Hams can use 902mhz to 928mhz so we can use these units, (I have read that the encryption can be turned off).
One of my main questions is how can the general public legally operate these units if they are not certified by the FCC or Industry Canada? The reason I need to know is out local government, what there is of it, organize the public for disaster comms using GMRS radios which do not work well, Meshtastic would be a perfect fit for so many, but they will not get involved unless it’s all certified. Is just having the Lora chip certified enough?
Thanks in advance to geeksville and all others who have build this amazing project especially when one reads about the villages in Brazil that will get decent low-cost comms. Looking forward to getting our T-Beam units.
Hi Moxy Yes 902-928Mhz is a shared amateur band and an Amateur radio operator can use non-certified equipment made from a kit in any legal amateur band with a basic license. Such as my Ubitx HF radio I made from a kit made in India.
The question is can non license (not a ham operator) people use T-Beam V1.0 w/ NEO-M8N because the Lora chip is or has been certified for use? I have been on the Semtech’s LoRa web site and it’s approved to use all over the world. It seems as if after reading over the links and thanks for the gov web site is a bear to navigate that the entire units would need certification. Low-power Licence-exempt Radiocommunication Devices — FAQ number 13 “If the radio device is not labeled with an Industry Canada certification/registration number, it is not approved for use in Canada.”
That said as the project goes on it would be worth seeing how hard it would be to get the units certified. It’s not inconceivable that we would want to order 400-500 units down the road and cover the entire island. When one thinks there is no ongoing service contract, will work without cell coverage or grid power, and will forward the messages it’s a fabulous communication tool for those who might not have the luxury of relying on the grid and are worried about massive storms, forest fires, and or earthquakes.
alas - IMO (not a lawyer and not an expert on FCC certs - though I have worked on products with them) I bet technically these radios are not legal in some places. The software tries to do the right thing (but it hasn’t been carefully tested to prove that it does and it might not) and some countries might require particular labelling and testing - with board X and software Y tested by agency Z.
Also - I don’t know what sort of regulatory exemptions exist for devices that are still in development / experimentation phase.
As this project matures there might be a role for someone to make an ‘official’ device where they do the FCC (or whatever) testing and with that particular device you’d be assured it is legal.
I doubt if this device can be (or will ever be) flashed with Meshtastic.
The CPU that is used on this board is a STM32F411RET which is not compatablele with a ESP32.