Guerrilla Communications
Off-grid Comms for the Novice Insurgent and Weary Backblocks Traveller
You exist in a world of ubiquitous communications, mildly annoyed when your cellphone is outside coverage and at least a little conscious of the disruption when the networks fail or overload.
Yours is a life of dependency without resiliency, without redundancy. Reliant upon communications services you do not control, operated primarily by telecommunications corporations themselves operating under indulgences afforded to them by governments.
If the network faults or suspends, you’re fucked.
Fortunately Meshtastic exists and offers a solution, providing a messaging capability over radio, unconnected to the telecommunications grid everyone relies upon. Lower down I’ll describe how Meshtastic works but I’ll start with some use-cases describing what you might use it for.
Emergency communications during power outages or telecommunications network disruptions
Hunting in the woods, when you need to know the precise location of other hunters and communicate with them
Informing the homestead you’re on your way from the back of the farm for lunch
Coordinate Cursor-on-Target operations amongst tactical units
Meshtastic devices are just radios that utilise a part of the spectrum that enables them to exchange messages over vast distances. It’s the same LoRa technology Internet-of-Things devices use to communicate across machine networks. In its simplest configuration communications between two devices can be extended over tens of kilometres. For example down the back of the farm, where cellphone coverage is patchy.
The power of Meshtastic though, comes from its ability to form ad hoc networks on the fly. Your unit will automatically join any Meshtastic network it can see and nodes on that network will forward your messages to its intended recipients.
The utility of this feature is difficult to overstate. With one of these Meshtastic devices on your person you possess a messaging capability independent of telecommunications infrastructure in pretty much every urban centre around the world. While no-one at the concert can make a phone call because the local cell sites are overloaded, your messaging solution operates unimpeded.
Messages exchanged across the Meshtastic network are heavily encrypted and can include GPS location data, including it is the default. Want to know your kid made it to school in the morning or need to tell them to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home? Meshtastic is the device to chuck in their backpack.
Same deal outside of cellular coverage range. Many trampers carry an EPIRB beacon for emergencies: pop the cap and the device sends a distress signal and your location via satellite to emergency services. EPIRBs are a solution of last resort, like you’ve fallen down a crevice and broken your leg. Meshtastic is a solution for problems underneath that threshold, like informing your tramping buddies down the trail that you’ve fallen down a crevice and broken your leg.
Meshtastic devices come in a huge variety of styles. Some are self-contained units with keypads for messaging while others provide the capability to your own cellphone. This works via the free Meshtastic app which provides the messaging interface and network map.
The units I quite like are the Heltec V4 LoRa boards because they’re inexpensive and reliable I can chuck them around. There are some great deals on kitsets if you shop about, here’s two units for $90.
Assembly takes a couple of minutes, comprising three screws and one nut.
In summary Meshtastic is a device everyone should own in my opinion, simply to provide a communications capability in situations where other forms are unavailable. In rural areas where cellular coverage is patchy day-to-day, and urban areas when the shit hits the fan.
-SRA. Auckland, 25/iii 2026.
(This is Part I. In Part II I’ll describe Situational Awareness Software and how it plugs into the underlying Meshtastic comms layer.)
