NEW Retevis RB24

[Guest tinkerman]

Hello. just wondering if anyone has tried out the new retevis rb24 mesh networking radios?

I'm curious about their capabilities, and since they are new and retevis' manual for them is hot chinglish garbage and didn't shed any light about what they're like I think the only way I'll be able to discover what they're actually capable of is to ask here until the Notarubicon video about them is out.

 

[rdunajewski]

Well that's interesting, it claims to be a LoRa radio in the UHF spectrum with 5W of power. 

[rdunajewski]

The little "repeater" is also interesting, and solar charging capable with a built-in battery backup.

https://www.retevis.com/rb91-direct-frequency-digital-repeater-with-2pcs-rb24-uhf-handheld-radio-us

[Guest Tinkerman]

Exactly, the only thing I’ve seen remotely like this using Lora for voice is an old project called Qmesh. Similar concept, with different execution. But retevis really hasn’t done any major announcements about these, so no one has really tested them which is surprising because it’s something unique.

[rdunajewski]

Just now, Guest Tinkerman said:

Exactly, the only thing I’ve seen remotely like this using Lora for voice is an old project called Qmesh. Similar concept, with different execution. But retevis really hasn’t done any major announcements about these, so no one has really tested them which is surprising because it’s something unique.

Meshtastic also supports voice using Codec 2 on LoRa but only on 2.4 GHz radios due to the bandwidth constraints. That's what makes audio on UHF interesting.

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/module/audio/

[Guest Tinkerman]

Yes, and that is one of the things that has been keeping me out of meshtastic, second being that you usually need a phone or some other device in addition to the meshtastic unit. Mesh networked voice in a simple standalone ip68 device that doesn’t have an app that sucks to use is a serious tool.
That’s why I’m hoping someone here has or will have some hands on experience with them. I want to understand how the hopping works a bit more, because the manual says only one of the radios needs to be set to “long” mode for it to work (whatever that is). So what if that one is out of the loop for example? And if you have the repeater does it get setup that way instead of one of the portables?
If Retevis wanted my money already they wouldn’t have left me with all these questions and no answers, but such is chinese marketing 

[rdunajewski]

Honestly, I'd be surprised if this got FCC approval. Actually, scratch that, the RT10 got FCC approval and I'm confident that is not legal for 900 MHz at 1W as license-free DMR. Pretty sure that squeaked by and so might this little gem.