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Get a really good deal on a RAK WisMesh Station.  I paid $169.99 for it.  It can be yours for $140.  Brand new, never used.

A MeshCore observer is a passive, read-only radio node on a MeshCore network that listens to local wireless traffic and sends that data over the internet to an MQTT broker. The observer does not route or repeat messages, but instead acts as the “ears” for online mapping and diagnostic tools.  Summit County, Colorado now has its first Meshcore observer. In this article I describe how I built and deployed the observer, and I tell you how you can see the results of this observer in action. (more…)

The Summit County Radio Club now has a web site.

You need to be very careful when making use of RAK’s one-watt LoRa radio (blog page), seen at right.  It is not easy to figure out whether the particular radio that you have in hand is an 868-MHz radio or a 915-MHz radio.  (more…)

The inaugural meeting of Summit County hams (July 1, 2026) was a success.  As a reminder this was at the North Branch of the Summit County Library – 651 Center Circle, Silverthorne, CO 80498 (Google maps).

The dates for the next two meetings have been set:

• September 15th, 2026 at 5:30 PM
• November 18th, 2026 at 5:30 PM

I invite you to save the dates.

The screen shot at right shows a happy thing that you might be able to accomplish.  You might be able to update your Meshcore repeater firmware using Bluetooth.  This might save you from having to climb a tower to get at the repeater.  But I, at least, had to try many times until I eventually made it work.  (In the screen shot at right, see the elusive and hard-to-get green check marks for “firmware updated” and “completed”.)  Even now I lack confidence that I could consistently repeat these two green check marks.  This blog article describes the OTA firmware update process and my efforts with it.  (more…)

It will be recalled that at the July 1 ham radio meeting (blog article), extra-class radio amateur Ed Bassett KF0KXE won one of the door prizes, a Seeed Studio LoRa mesh starter kit, shown below.  It will also be recalled that on July 8, a new Meshcore repeater (named “CO-SUM-R08”) got deployed that, it was hoped, would provide new coverage in parts of Breckenridge, as marked in red in the map at right.  On July 9, Ed used his new starter kit to create a Meshcore companion device, and carried out tests that established that indeed there is now Meshcore coverage in parts of Breckenridge.  In this blog article I describe Ed’s work.

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The number of Meshcore repeaters in Summit County has now reached about thirteen.   Here you can see a “likely” coverage map, using an online coverage estimating tool.  I say “likely” because the only way you can really know if you have coverage in a particular location is to go to that location and try to connect to the network.

There is much room for improvement in coverage.  Summit County areas lacking full coverage include:

• Most of northern Summit County (toward Heeney and Kremmling)
• Summit Cove
• Keystone
• Arapahoe Basin
• Montezuma
• Blue River
• Most of southern Summit County (toward Hoosier Pass)
• Eastern I-70 toward the Eisenhower Tunnel
• Western I-70 toward Copper Mountain and Vail Pass
• Highway 91 toward Fremont Pass

The Summit County Meshcore network is not yet linked to any of the other Meshcore networks in Colorado.  It would be desirable, for example, to link the Summit County network to the extensive network seen below, which extends from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs.

We now have two new Summit County Meshcore repeaters.  At right is a photo showing some of the likely new coverage area.  These repeaters might provide Meshcore coverage in parts of Breckenridge, and should also provide high quality line-of-sight coverage to the radio hut area of Baldy Mountain.  (more…)

In an earlier blog article I mentioned that it is possible to add a Bosch BME280 sensor to the RAK one-watt LoRa mesh radio.  This article details how to do it and how to get the telemetry.  (more…)