This is the multi-page printable view of this section. Click here to print.
News
Introductions Are in Order
Introducing KN0CTJ
When brainstorming ideas for this blog, it seemed fitting to kick things off with an introduction—so here’s mine.
I’m Calvin, and I recently became a part of both the Meshtastic and Amateur Radio communities following our annual sales conference in Las Vegas. During the event, a group of my colleagues and fellow tech enthusiasts came up with an idea: we’d all head to Vegas, use Meshtastic to communicate, and learn how it works while finally meeting in person. Many of us are scattered across the globe, so this was a unique opportunity to connect.
And so, the plan was set. Twenty thousand of my “closest friends” (our sales teams) descended upon Vegas. As soon as we touched down, Meshtastic nodes began popping up everywhere. About 100 of us actively participated, and I’m already looking forward to an even bigger turnout next year.
Here’s the Reddit post my coworker shared about the event: Reddit Meshtastic in Vegas
After those exciting four days in Vegas, the general recommendation was to find a local Amateur Radio club and see how I could contribute. Unfortunately, my experience with my local radio group wasn’t ideal, but it eventually led me to the Iowa Radio Operators Discord group. From there, I started building IowaMesh.net.
The inspiration for IowaMesh.net came from seeing folks traveling from the Chicago area, joining ChiMesh, and sharing their experiences. I thought it was time to get Iowa involved and see how far we could connect. Since Iowa is pretty spread out, I began with an MQTT server and hosted a meshmap to visualize communication. While implementing RF/Lora remains a goal, MQTT has proven to be a great starting point for linking people together. We’ve expanded coverage to Altoona and Des Moines and are now reaching Jefferson, Greene County, and Cedar Rapids—and we continue growing every day.
Before diving into radio and Meshtastic, I was a Systems & Network Engineer for various companies. Eventually, I traded my 2 AM troubleshooting sessions for a pre-sales engineer role. Although networking remains close to my heart, venturing into Radio, Wireless, and Meshtastic has allowed me to apply my skills in fresh, exciting ways outside of work. It’s been a fantastic change of pace from the “same old, same old.” I’m always happy to chat about networking, radio, or other nerdy projects!
Calvin (KN0CTJ)
Welcome To IowaMesh and the New Format
Welcome to IowaMesh.net
I wanted to take a moment and say welcome to anybody whos joining us here a IowaMesh! What started out as a simple Meshmap, MQTT hosted server and connecting a group of folks from Iowa Radio Operators has evolved into what you see here today. I can’t thank Ethan (@nv1k) for helping get the frame of this built and putting up with my 1000 stupid questions (I wasn’t a developer first; Network Engineer turned PreSales Enginneer). What you see here is hours effort making sure we can best serve the Iowa and potentially further.
We’ll start posting up blog posts with builds and hardware lists. Also have pages for other hardware recomendations and some setup guides for the beginner through the more advanced user. Bear with us as we continue to build out that material (and if you have recomendations send us a note!). Not that this is any bit of an excuse, but this isn’t our day job so we will be working on this as we can. But know that we are dedicated to keep this alive and well!
So whats next? We aren’t sure. We want to build out a backbone across Iowa that users within the State and those traveling through can utilize with Meshtastic. Either way we want to connect with you and your use case and learn more. How could we be a resource to your club or maybe individual effort.
Find us on Discord, Email us with ideas, Find the source on GitHub and We are looking forward to getting to know everyone!
Calvin (KN0CTJ)