Sal W6SAL - Updated on: 2026-02-12
So here we are, folks. MeshCore has been operational for damn near a year now, and you know what’s happened? The adoption rate has gone through the goddamn roof. And why? Because all these people—and I mean ALL these people—who’ve been sitting around on Meshtastic for months, maybe years, finally had their lightbulb moment. They finally figured out that they were just screaming into the void like a bunch of lunatics at a bus stop. Talking to themselves. Broadcasting into the digital equivalent of a black hole. Nothing coming back but their own pathetic echo.
And who are these people, you ask? Oh, let me paint you a picture.
First, you’ve got your wanna-be amateur radio operators—and I say “wanna-be” because they don’t want to actually study for the goddamn test. No, no, no. That would require effort. That would require opening a book and learning something about ohm’s law and the difference between VHF and UHF. These are the same mouth-breathers who think buying a $25 Baofeng from Amazon makes them Marconi reincarnated.
Then you’ve got your doomsday preppers. You know the type. These are the guys who’ve been binge-watching YouTube videos at three in the morning about how to dry venison on handmade wooden racks, how to purify water with a coffee filter made from used pantyhose and their own sense of self-importance, how to survive the apocalypse with nothing but duct tape and their delusional sense of superiority. These clowns have been stockpiling canned beans and silver coins, convinced that society’s gonna collapse any day now, but somehow they still live with their mothers and can’t figure out how to change a tire.
And oh—OH!—let’s not forget the basement-dwelling trolls. The insecure little gremlins who have absolutely ZERO authority in their actual lives. No one listens to them at work. Their families don’t listen to them. Hell, their own cats don’t listen to them. So what do they do? They crawl onto these digital networks and they appoint themselves Sheriff of the Repeaters, Deputy of the Airwaves, Lord High Commander of the MeshCore Realm. They sit there in their underwear, surrounded by empty Mountain Dew bottles, dated hamburger wrappers and broken dreams, and they start making up rules. THEIR rules. For everyone else.
Now all of these pathetic goons—and I’m talking about a whole parade of human disappointment here—all of them have finally realized that Meshtastic is a horrible solution for what they actually want to do. It’s like they’ve been trying to pound a square peg into a round hole for months, and they finally noticed that, hey, maybe there’s a better way. So what do they do? They pack up their toxic attitudes, their made-up authority, their desperate need for control, and they bring their evil, petty, small-minded ways to MeshCore.
And folks, in the last few weeks? Holy shit. The floodgates have opened. There’s been this complete influx of chatter, and normally—NORMALLY—I’d say that’s wonderful. More people, more activity, more experimentation. That’s what this hobby is supposed to be about, right? Wrong. Because these jackasses didn’t just bring their radios, they brought their bullshit. They’ve turned what should be an exciting new frontier into a toxic cesspool of self-appointed enforcement agents.
“You should put this into a channel.” “You shouldn’t have a bot.” “You should do this.” “You shouldn’t do that.” SHOULD, SHOULD, SHOULD. Who the fuck died and made you the King of MeshCore? Who gave you the authority to tell everyone else how to use their own goddamn equipment?
The public channel—which should be a place for collaboration and experimentation—is being absolutely inundated with goons who have NO idea what they’re talking about. And I mean NONE. We’re talking negative knowledge here. These people don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re proud of it.
Perfect example: You’ve got these old men—and I’m talking about guys who can barely operate their own iPhone, who have to call their grandkids to help them with email, who think “the cloud” is just weather—these fossilized know-it-alls are trying to police the ham radio channel. These are the SAME people, mind you, who genuinely believe that owning a Baofeng radio is the equivalent of passing and earning an actual FCC amateur radio license. Like the radio came with the license printed on the box. Like purchasing power equals knowledge and skill. It doesn’t, you goddamn idiots!
So let me be crystal fucking clear about something here, because apparently this needs to be said: MeshCore is a place where ALL can use this technology. Not just you. Not just the people who agree with you. Not just the people who do things your way. ALL.
This is uncharted territory. This is a place unbound by the rules and regulations that typically get slapped onto everything once the bureaucrats and the control freaks get their grubby little hands on it. I’ll say it again for the people in the back: THIS IS THE WILD WEST OF RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND OFF-GRID COMMUNICATIONS. You understand what that means? It means there’s no sheriff. It means there’s no mayor. There not HOA saying your manscaped grass is too short. It means there’s no city council telling everyone where they can and can’t set up shop.
What works for one group of people does NOT need to be applied to the masses. This is not a one-size-fits-all situation. This is not a “my way or the highway” scenario. You don’t get to decide how everyone else uses their equipment, their time, their creativity.
Here’s an analogy for you morons: Let’s say you wake up in the morning, you stumble into the bathroom, you take a gigantic shit—I’m talking about the kind that requires a courtesy flush halfway through—then you mosey into your kitchen and you brew yourself a cup of coffee. Fine. Great. That’s your routine. That works for YOU. But it does NOT mean you get to publicly impale somebody, crucify them in the town square, when they wake up in the morning, take a shower first, and have a cup of tea instead of coffee. You don’t get to tell them they’re doing it wrong because they’re not doing it YOUR way. Their morning routine is none of your goddamn business!
So I’m imploring—no, scratch that—I’m DEMANDING that everybody who doesn’t even understand what proper radio communication protocols actually are, everyone who doesn’t know a repeater offset from a hole in the ground, everyone who thinks “CQ” is something you find on a eye exam chart, I’m demanding that all of you SHUT THE FUCK UP. Get off the radio. Stop trying to be the sheriff, the deputy, the hall monitor of MeshCore. Stop trying to tell other people what to do, ESPECIALLY when those people are actually building technology, writing code, contributing actual value to better this hobby while you sit there contributing nothing but hot air and unearned opinions.
Have I written a series of bots for MeshCore? Absolutely. Damn right I have. There’s an earthquake bot that gives you real-time seismic data. There’s a weather bot that provides actual useful information. There’s a ham radio propagation bot for people who actually understand what propagation is and why it matters. There’s a calendar bot that interfaces with Google calendars and ICS files so people can coordinate activities and events. These are TOOLS. These are RESOURCES. These are contributions to the network that provide actual utility.
If you don’t like what you’re seeing from these bots, if these useful tools somehow offend your delicate sensibilities, then I have a suggestion for you: Do a long press on that contact name and BLOCK that sender. It’s that simple. It takes about two seconds. You don’t have to see the data that’s coming from these bots that are bettering the hobby, making it more useful, more interesting, more capable. Just block it and move on with your life.
This is not like I’m flooding the network with popcorn kernel counts or some inane robotic chatter about what I had for breakfast. These bots serve a purpose. They provide information. They add value. And if you can’t see that, if you can’t appreciate the work that goes into building and maintaining these tools, then that’s YOUR problem, not mine.
So here’s the bottom line: MeshCore is what we make it. It’s a collaborative space. It’s an experimental platform. It’s not your personal kingdom where you get to make the rules for everyone else. If you want to participate, great. If you want to contribute, even better. But if all you want to do is bitch and moan and tell everyone else they’re doing it wrong? Then kindly fuck off back to wherever you came from and let the rest of us get on with the actual work of building something interesting.
End of rant.