LoRa the Explorer

Where’s Waldo? And what about Carmen Sandiego? There is something about seeking out and discovering hidden treasures or other mysteries that sparks our curiosity. It starts early with childhood games of hide-and-seek and continues into adulthood with geocaching. If you are the sort that cannot resist a good mystery, then Gabe Emerson has got a real doozy for you in the wilds of Alaska.

Unfortunately it is not as exciting as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or a pirate’s buried treasure chest, but it is almost as good for the serious radio nerd. Emerson has planted a Meshtastic node somewhere deep inside Southeastern Alaska. If you can find it, it is yours to keep. But the real prize is the bragging rights that come along with picking this needle out of a massive haystack.

There is no map with an “X” to mark the spot, so you will have to sniff the node out with the right kind of hardware. As a refresher, Meshtastic is a LoRa peer-to-peer network that forms a mesh to extend its range. This makes Meshtastic networks particularly useful for long-distance communications where existing infrastructure is lacking or nonexistent.

The primary node is a HELTEC LoRa 32 board, which is powered by an ESP32-S3FN8 microcontroller and a Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver. After flashing the board with Meshtastic firmware, Emerson placed it in a weather-proofed case along with a battery, solar panel, and antenna. If you had big plans for the included OLED display, you might be a little disappointed. It was removed to help the board fit in the case.

A pair of smaller, droppable breadcrumb nodes were also built using hardware such as the RAK WisBlock, along with cheap solar cells, batteries, and cases. These inexpensive nodes can be sprinkled around to help lead the way to the primary node. All of the nodes were fairly inexpensive, coming in at around $40 to $50 each.

Making a special trip to Alaska may be out of the question to locate a $50 Meshtastic node, but Emerson did drop a pretty big hint. The node is near the ocean and cruise ships frequently pass within range. So if you have an Alaskan cruise planned in the near future, be sure to bring some equipment along with you (as if you’d be caught without it anyway).

If Alaska is not in your future, you can still have some fun with Meshtastic devices. The Meshtastic Device Design Challenge is underway at Hackster, and a lot more than a $50 node is up for grabs. There is over $7,000 in prizes at stake, so get yourself entered today and start designing a unique product that makes use of mesh networking.