HAMNET MeshCore Western Cape Tech Talk Video
The Boland Amateur Radio Club (BARC) invited me to do this talk on 23 July 2026. HAMNET Emergency Communications provided the Zoom platform. The audience consisted of radio amateurs, citizens, and disaster management. MeshCore is a newer type of license-free decentralised radio network that allows citizens, government agencies including nature reserves, disaster management agencies, and amateur radio operators to all talk together, whether in public channels, directly to each other, or even in private encrypted channels. This is WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal without the Internet. The network is not only useful to make new friends across the city and stay in communication with neighbours, but more importantly it is a resilient network that will stay operation long after the Internet has ceased to work due to a disaster or lengthy power outages. This is achievable through solar-powered repeater nodes at high sites, and the fact that this network is not dependent on any central server or presence, and of course there is no approval or registration to use it. My talk highlights the similarities and differences between MeshCore and Meshtastic networks, and the reasons why such a network is so important to have in place across cities and towns. I highlight two recent outages we've had in the Western Cape where towns lost their electricity supply due to adverse weather conditions, and had their normal communications cut off for up to a week. In this time HAMNET does assist with communications but only from key points. Having a broader MeshCore network available, allows citizens and disaster management agencies to stay in contact with each other for essential services and assistance. The City of Cape Town and Western Cape Provincial Government, recognise the value of having fallback communications, and HAMNET already has emergency radio rooms at both sites, which are kept in operational readiness. We are aiming to have something like MeshCore also officially endorsed by the City and Province, so that citizens can equip themselves with these radios ahead of any potential disasters in the future. We also have some wilderness areas in and around Cape Town which have no cellular phone coverage, such as the top of Table Mountain. These areas are also ideal to have such radio networks operational, as they are easy to deploy, and radio nodes cost around R500 each (whether bought by citizens/tourist, or even available to rent for the day). The talk concludes with a comprehensive Q&A around various topics relating to MeshCore radio.
Chapters:
Intro 00:00
What Is HAMNET 01:49
Context Intro 03:40
What is MeshCore/Meshtastic 09:50
What It Looks Like 12:44
Diagnostic Comparison 14:20
Path Routing 19:31
Noise Floor 12:12
Bandwidth and Battery Life 22:23
Strengths of Each Platform 23:39
Use Case Scenarios 27:31
MeshCore SAR App 31:57
Default MeshCore Radio Settings 33:10
Way Forward 37:08
Danie's Website Page 38:20
MeshMapper Wardriving 38:54
Flashing Firmware 41:42
SF and CR 43:15
Local Hardware 44:04
Importance for Amateur Radio Clubs 45:30
Discord Server 46:58
Meet Your Fellow Citizens 48:40
How Close Can Antennas Be 49:33
Reticulum Radio Network 51:55
Proximity To Other Antennas 44:59
Roof Nodes 58:54
Yagi Antennas 59:29
Why 868 MHz and not 433 MHz 01:00:37
Getting Out Of Repeater Shadows 01:03:52
Repeaters on Buildings 01:05:38
Disaster Management Endorsement 01:06:23
Permission To Put Repeaters Up 01:08:40
Motivation To Put Repeaters Up 01:10:10
HAMNET Emergency Comms Trailer 01:11:48
Cape Town Moving Forward 01:12:52
LINKS:
MeshCore website https://meshcore.io
MeshMapper CPT https://cpt.meshmapper.net/index.php?...
South African Discord Server 
/ discord
Danie's MeshCore Page https://gadgeteer.co.za/hamradio/mesh...
OpenWebRx SDR Receiver https://openwebrx.gadgeteerza.co.za - Choose 'RTL-SDR Meshtastic' profile
- Danie vd Merwe ZS1OSS
