At last we can tell you everything.

So right here i should be making the title

" Official Statement from mpowered247.com formerly known as meshtasicuk.com and map.meshtasticuk.com"

But im not, this is a community project and i want to keep it personal. Off the cuff straight from the heart type stuff.

So here we go.

So before you read this blog post it might help to read all the previous ones for the full story- don't forget to read from right to left as for some reason shopify made this happen incorrectly and the dates are messed up.. ( change of domain didn't help )

Originally i bought my first node knowing nothing about how it all worked, placed it in the window at work and waited.. and waited... and nothing ( you've all done this right? )

Then i bought another one for my house.. 13 miles away... surprise, nothing.

Then forgot about the whole thing while life and other hobbies took over. Then one night ( yes im blaming you ) i came across one of Andys videos... So bought another and dropped it on my friend of thirty years Neil and... still nothing.

So its time to buy more nodes for mates and try to make the leap from Blackpool airport to Thornton Cleveleys.. because, well its fun right? I kept spending and dropping nodes at friends house's all the time trying to explain Meshtastic  and what it did. This mainly got looks of " we have the internet? why would you do this?"

Im now into nine nodes with very good antennas spanning Blackpool. And guess what? the connections still rough as hell. Now if your married you know to keep such spending away from her, its unwise and shes going to give you that "look".

I mean, im about a £1000 into this hobby with all the bits, safe to say ive tested all of them.

I need to buy more, get them faster for my network and help the community  get hold of them with decent testing and quality control ( as i have bought a lot of broken lemons from Ali - oh and yes i lost money on the great T Echo scam!!)  and in a delivery time that's not 8 weeks from China !

At this point its just a thought

Then the map we all used got trashed and our efforts to make links was harder and harder. Enter Neil, now the thing you need to know about friends with certain skills is that at some point you going to need him and those skills, oh and hes going to moan a lot and say it cannot be done, but of course it can.

Now its time to use my business acumen to see if i can buy lots more nodes for my area of Blackpool. Now as im used to dealing with other countries, i know one thing, for any decent amount of discount im going to need to order numbers, but how big are those numbers going to be? and can i get it passed she who must be obeyed. 

The numbers i need to order after speaking with Heltec, Rak etc and all the others is HUGE.. like really HUGE. Like enough nodes to cover Blackpool... and Manchester and Liverpool.. infact most of the UK.

Onto other friends, so see previous i now have some meshtastic addicted friends who are ex field engineers and have various skills to help build my local mesh, enter Ben.  Now the thing about ben is he makes things work from nothing... i mean literally nothing so hes going to make all this work some how.. now after ben looks over the whole network setup and a ton of research he tells me im going to need more nodes, thanks ben great help.  During this conversation he says " you should buy a shed load of them, use the ones you need and sell the rest on, least it will cover your shipping and the wife will never notice how much you've spent "

See? this is all about friends. Now while all this is going on im still watching Andy Kirby's You Tube videos ( and ignoring his thumb nails! :)  and absorbing everything on the internet about meshtastic, like everything... often till 3am in the morning and trying to hold down a full time job and a family.

Now these videos, Facebook and discord all show one thing in common. Nobody can get kit in a timely manner and the mesh growth is being constricted. 

Shall i order a ton of them and put them on Ebay?

No, i have standards.

                            

Now lets be clear on a few things, that map was created off the cuff as the other map was trashed  in various ways. I gave Neil the problem and said i needed it operational with zero costs in four days.. yes FOUR days. He moaned, a lot.  I went online and grabbed a domain name and pestered him everyday,  (and night)

Now its time to bring Andy into the friend group, as in essence he wants to grow the mesh himself and hes knowledgeable ( although southern ) and can help promote our new map! Four days later Andy hits YouTube with another ( sensationalized, sorry Andy )  video that mentions the meshtasticuk.com node map.

In the background Andy and myself are chatting about the "big meshtastic device shortage" and the fact someone needs to do something about it.

The video went live with the new map on it and when our "time to live" clock hit zero people started to join.....and it grew.. and grew... right now we have nearly 800 users across 20 countries and the feedback from the community was great, the wish list is MASSIVE... MQTT was only the half of the requests.

Neil agreed the work request from me for the build of the map was going to be added to my list of "you owe me one's" but reminded me that Andy and i had agreed it would be free to use for the world as long as none of us were homeless and could afford to pay for its upkeep.

The wish list grew...the users grew. So much so the wife saw Andy's video on YouTube and asked who was funding it all. That'll be me. Now marrying an accountant has its advantages and disadvantages. But the demand is everything's got to be self funding or expenses  ( i like to call them hobbies myself )

Now having bought the domain name and played around with shopify  i pretty much had hacked together an online shop... and made my first big order after making friends with Heltec...  of course i had to come clean about myself and Neil funding the order..not sure if Neil has told his Mrs yet..

Oh just to add in here, i locked myself out of my online shop and the support from shopify was shocking... 39 emails in and contacting the CEO got me nothing. 10 days later i opened a new account and the other one should be closed, although it isnt.

So the plans running, the maps running and the community loves it, the wish list will get done but Neil may be dead as hes working nights and days. All is good in the meshtastic garden.

Then an email lands ..from the President of Meshtastic LLC.. Great.. or is it.

He requests a meeting when we have a minute  so i agree. Then, a little late to0 the party Ben sends me an email with a link...the link to the trade mark info for meshtastic... oh crap.

Whats the number for my solicitor again?

Now im pretty good at excuses, you'll learn this as we go. Not going to lie, we got excited with the map and the problems people were all having with the old one and went for it... having not read the small print. Come on, you all thought Meshtastic was open source therefore everything is FREE! right?

Now if we are to be honest the four of us are research guys when we buy something... its obsessive. But with this i missed it big time. So its time for me to know everything about Mr President of Meshtastic. Everything was studied online and his inner circle even REDACTED was consulted to learn about his love of baking cookies amongst other things.

So i take half a day off and go home for said meeting, im wearing the usual business attire from being at work and so is Neil. I mean, this guys the President right and hes not going to be wearing something from TK MAXX right  (thats like Walmart to our American friends)

Wrong, we are in his kitchen, hes just woke up ( its 7am his time ) and hes wearing a hoodie?!" WTF... hes like a normal guy, like us.. and he even speaks like us with the same community passion for Meshtastic.  Now as we are chatting away about the success of the map and the amount of users im waiting for the bad news here, he didn't call to say "good  job guys"

The conversation went on for a long time, we even gave him admin access to the map data so he could rest assured we were honest people - no we didn't give away all your email addresses before anyone cries. Check our terms we don't do that stuff We shared the whole plan, the map the store even REDACTED

So whats the upshot for us, well it was all agreed in this meeting that i have documented in case his wife comes for us too.

Here's the upshot you probably didn't know, and ill put it in simple terms from my understanding. The software meshtastic is free and open source - simple.

Meshtastic LLC and its counterparts have the job of protecting the name and its trade mark - which i understand completely now as i would do the same. Now people like me who unknowingly use the meshtastic name can be A/ Taken to court or B/ asked politely to work with them as a partnership.

I will take option B/ please your honour.

So here we are, not affiliated directly with meshtastic  as its a software company that's open source but we are MESHTASIC POWERED and have full rights to use the logo and have the Presidents blessing. The new logo you see here M Powered is meshtastic powered, obvious right? The team at meshtastic have offered to help us out with anything they can with the map and the upcoming store, after all this is about growing the mesh after all isn't it?

The maps growing  with the help of the community, the store is coming along and the stock is on a boat somewhere! Dont ask when the shops opening, as soon as i have stock itll be on Andys video and on this blog!

We are now the official dealers for Heltec, Rak Wireless, Lily Go , Parardar and McGill Mircowave antennas! - more friends. 

Oh by the way if you think, like i have read online that we are trying to "make a quick buck" you clearly don't know the margins in this "business". If we break even it will be a miracle  but if we do, its all helping to grow the mesh and its community.

And that Maps always going to be FREE for everyone, your choice if you want to use it, ive been totally transparent here.

The logo on the map will be transitioned into the new one in the coming days.

Think we have made some new friends along this journey, and that's how you grow a community or a mesh as i like to call it.

Thanks all.

Mark

 

AKA xraymark

 

Special thanks to all who helped out including

JM Casler

Andy Kirby

Neil Waring

Ben Griggs

Ben  - Vektor Radio

Jimbodiddly

tropho

KiloA

M0AWS

NorthernMonkey

TCS

 

Our families and friends for putting up with all this REDACTED

 

Ps if you worried about my spelling and grammar  on these blogs you need to get out more ( with a node preferably ) its after 2am and im tired to say the least.

 

This blog and its content are my personal opinion to the best of my memory and in no way reflect the opinions of others - or their wives