(Disclaimer: I just freshly learned about Meshtastic this year and only used it for the first time. Also, I am not knowledgeable in radio communications tech.)
Speaking of my personal experience this year, just using 2x RAK Meshtastic Starter Kit with the PCB antenna and a 3d-printed case, Meshtastic worked really well for my friend and me. It seems we were able to reach each other reliably via Meshtastic chat messages during the whole festival, thus being able to meet at several occasions. Most messages were shown as confirmed after 1 or 2 seconds in the Meshtastic app.
Our devices had no display, so we were using the app for everything. We had problems with location sharing in the iOS app though. As a result, we were not really using the location feature.
I had a wow moment inside Datscha. My smartphone would not show any cellular reception, but Meshtastic messages somehow still made their way out successfully.
Also, with reporting from people who had internet access during some stormy periods, the default
LongFast channel quickly became known as The Weather Channel. Loved it
Some general conclusions from this year's usage: According to the speaker of the comms talk, up to 200 nodes were active at the festival (my devices only saw 80 though). Talking to some people after the talk, I learned that we saw quite a high level of channel airtime utilization – up to 50%. If I understood correctly, this could mean that the network will not scale much more than double the amount of users / traffic. So we might reach some limits if there are more users next time. Would be nice if someone could elaborate on this.
So.. Did you people have similar experiences?
Einen extra Fusion Kanal einzurichten würde nur zu fragmentierung der community führen.