this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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I'll say what I just said on a similar thread: if the internet goes down tomorrow, mesh will mean very little compared to ham radio.
Any quality transceiver built in the last 100 years will be more useful. It is purely about how many exist, how long they last, and their requirements for use (which are effectively, power and antenna).
Yes, there is a license that you need in non-emergency situations. It doesn't change much anything in emergency situations, and it certainly doesn't affect the fact that there are already millions of radios out there.
I certainly wouldn't throw away a mesh if the world was ending -- I'd set it on the desk while finding contacts on HF (=world band) using a ham radio. My chances of contact there are at least an order of magnitude better.
I've come to the realization that mesh nodes are little more than a gateway drug into the world of ham radio. And for that I'm grateful.
It's not as good, and does everything worse than radio. The only real world use I have found is for when cellphone networks get overwhelmed at things like music festivals and large sports games. No one else's texts go through, but I can toss by buds a node to put in their back pocket and we can stay in touch.
our local mature club is building our local mesh network out now as an introduction to the ham world. And it's working. It's getting the younger kids and adults through the door. And from there, it's an easy thing to get them interested in more useful and fun forms of communication.
I bring FRS radios (normal ol' walkie talkies) to the local Renaissance festival which has awful to no cell reception. It works great.
But yeah the barrier to even getting a technician license is too high. You get people that get excited and wanna do stuff and then they're told they can't. So things like meshtastic where they actually can do radio related things without a license are great.
The question pool is so small you can memorize it :)
9/10 of the tech test is common sense or courtesy, and the bare minimum to make contact
I get you, it's pretty easy, but I'm just saying trying to get somebody into a hobby, and then saying "actually you can't talk to people until you schedule a test" is a huge barrier.
It's likely why the hobby is dying.
That said, ham equipment is generally able to be operated in a way that could interfere with police, fire, and air traffic. If you're operating bigger stuff, you can end up with RF exposure or even exposing your neighbors. It's all fun and games till you burn out Mrs. Johnsons pacemaker :)
I'd say they should make some safer HT's that don't step on emergency bands and do a scouts honor web test, but those bands are so poorly defined, and GMRS/FRS is already in that headspace.
There's no restriction to purchase this stuff, so licensing will only stop accidents, not intentional bad actors. Even Baofengs can be put into a "ham mode" so they don't transmit out of band. I don't think we'd see it happen, but a license class under technician targeted at getting people legally able to use lower power handhelds super quickly would be nice. Even the technician question bank has questions about things that ultimately don't really matter for making sure people operate in band as they should. The metaphor I give folks is like if your driver's license test asked you questions about how to build engines. (And part of the reason we won't ever see that is because amateur radio licenses allow you to construct and use your own equipment, as opposed to things like FRS where the part itself has to be certified.)