About Us

After many months of COVID19 lockdown and watching many YOUTUBE™ videos regarding mesh networking and AREDN (www.arednmesh.org), a group of like minded individuals within the North East area of England decided to embark upon this project.

Many hours of discusions have taken place over the air on our normal weekly nets and also at other times. You can normally find us on either 145.450Mhz or 433.450Mhz on a Wednesday evening at 20:00hrs also on Facebook™ group CQ R-S-T Home.

Steve, G4EKM, had already dabbled with BROADBAND HAMNET to a small extent using LinkSys WRT54 type devices on 2.4GHZ within a  limited test environment. Technology has progressed at a very rapid rate and commercial devices such as UBIQUITI and MIKROTIK have become available at reasonable prices, both new and also on internet trading sites.

As part of his business, Steve had also accumulated a supply of networking devices covering 2.4GHZ and 5.8GHZ.

The founders of the group have all come from IT and Electronic backgrounds with the philosophy of using what is to hand or construct from scratch. Construction projects are shared between us all, using the Facebook™ group North East Electronic Constructors.

AREDN - Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network - was created in the USA and many of the software developers are from big IT manufacturing companies, hence being able to modify and create new firmware for the WIFI devices. Its prime development was to provide facilities for emergency response within amateur radio - ARES ARRL.

In the UK, RAYNET, is the equivilant organisation for amateur radio (www.raynet-uk.net) and is it just by chance that several of the founding members are part of this organisation. The ability to provide a different offering other than voice transmission intrigued us, possibilities of high speed data, video,etc.

There would only be a minimum use of the internet for tunnelling purposes when RF links are not available and/or during the testing phases whilst COVID19 lockdown restrictions were in place.

As this project is aimed at Radio Amateurs, it is NOT a replacement for the internet as this is not covered by our licencse.

Founding Members

G0BZY - Paul

G4EKM - Steve

G4LIA - Joe

G4NXH - Andrew

Who can be involved

Anyone who is a radio amateur or is thinking about becoming a radio amateur or can provide assistance with the project.

In order to use the frequencies involved i.e. 2.4GHZ and 5.8GHZ, only INTERMEDIATE or FULL licensees are able to transmit. FOUNDATION level radio amateurs could be involved by helping to provide a location for mesh nodes and act as close down operators. It is also a good incentive for progressing to the next license level.

Want more information or are interested in joining

Send an email to Steve G4EKM or visit us on Facebook™ on the group - North East Data Network.