Meshtastic: A Tale Of Two Cities

October 9, 2025 by Tom Nardi 76 Comments

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really need access to an off-grid, fault-tolerant, mesh network like Meshtastic. The weather here in New Jersey isn’t quite so dynamic that there’s any great chance the local infrastructure will be knocked offline, and while I do value my privacy as much as any other self-respecting hacker, there’s nothing in my chats that’s sensitive enough that it needs to be done off the Internet.

But damn it, do I want it. The idea that everyday citizens of all walks of life are organizing and building out their own communications network with DIY hardware and open source software is incredibly exciting to me. It’s like the best parts of a cyberpunk novel, without all the cybernetic implants, pollution, and over-reaching megacorps. Well, we’ve got those last two, but you know what I mean.

Meshtastic maps are never exhaustive, but this gives an idea of node density in Philly versus surrounding area.

Even though I found the Meshtastic concept appealing, my seemingly infinite backlog of projects kept me from getting involved until relatively recently. It wasn’t until I got my hands on the Hacker Pager that my passing interest turned into a full blown obsession. But it’s perhaps not for the reason you might think. Traveling around to different East Coast events with the device in my bag, it would happily chirp away when within range of Philadelphia or New York, but then fall silent again once I got home. While I’d get the occasional notification of a nearby node, my area had nothing like the robust and active mesh networks found in those cities.

Well, they say you should be the change you want to see in the world, so I decided to do something about it. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to build up an entire network by myself, but I figured that if I started standing up some nodes, others might notice and follow suit. It was around this time that Seeed Studio introduced the SenseCAP Solar node, which looked like a good way to get started. So I bought two of them with the idea of putting one on my house and the other on my parent’s place down the shore.

The results weren’t quite what I expected, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience so far, and today I’m even more eager to build up the mesh than I was in the beginning.

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Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith

October 8, 2025 by Tom Nardi 52 Comments

We at Hackaday are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Robert Murray-Smith. The prolific experimenter had spent over a decade on YouTube, creating more than 2,500 videos where he gleefully demonstrated his seemingly endless collection of homemade contraptions. At least eighteen of which ended up on the pages of Hackaday since we first crossed paths with him back in 2013.

Like many of you, we were also shocked to find that Robert made the decision to end his own life. As cliché as it might sound, he simply didn’t seem like the type. His demeanor was always boisterous in his videos, exhibiting an almost child-like joy as he showed off his latest creation with a laugh and smile.

But as explained by his brother Dave in the brief announcement video posted yesterday, his outward appearance was a well-rehearsed mask that covered a deepening depression. Regular viewers of Robert’s videos knew he lost his wife, as he shared a memorial video for her in April of 2024. What he was less open about with his viewers was his own health, which it turns out had been rapidly declining for the last few months.

We now know that simply getting up and walking around had become painful for Robert, a fact obscured by the fact that most of his videos saw him seated at his workbench or in the back garden. That he was able to continue making so many videos at all speaks not only to his passion for technology and engineering, but the great love he had for the community that he’d built.

From the video we also learned that Robert found it very difficult to discuss his declining mental and physical health with friends and family. For men of his generation, the “strong and silent type” was often the ideal. Given all that he was going through, nobody could fault him for experiencing a sense of hopelessness, and yet his brother explains that Robert would never admit to the difficulties he was facing. Whenever pushed to talk about his feelings, he’d respond with that phrase which we’ve all heard (and maybe used once or twice) — “I’m fine.”

Because of this, Robert’s family has partnered with the suicide prevention charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) to try and raise awareness about men’s mental health. They ask that anyone who wishes to honor Robert make a donation to CALM, in the hopes that they can help others who may find themselves in a similar situation.

It’s no great secret that many in the hacker and maker communities face their own daily struggles. Whether it’s from being neurodivergent, or the inability to fit in with mainstream society. Several of the staff here at Hackaday are from marginalized groups, and even among those who aren’t, let’s just say we have it on good authority that most of them didn’t get to sit with the “cool kids” back in high school. We also know that, just like Robert, many in the community find it difficult to communicate with others about how this impacts their mental health.

The lasting legacy of Robert Murray-Smith will of course be his incredible body of work, which will continue to inspire millions of viewers. But we can also honor him by making sure that we’re looking out for the well-being of friends, family, and even ourselves. There are resources available, and there’s no shame in asking for help when you need it.

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JawnCon Returns This Weekend

October 7, 2025 by Tom Nardi 1 Comment

For those local to the Philadelphia area, a “jawn” can be nearly anything or anyone — and at least for this weekend, it can even be a hacker con building up steam as it enters its third year. Kicking off this Friday at Arcadia University, JawnCon0x2 promises to be another can’t-miss event for anyone with a curious mind that lives within a reasonable distance of the Liberty Bell.

The slate of talks leans slightly towards the infosec crowd, but there’s really something for everyone on the schedule. Presentations such as Nothing is Safe: An Introduction to Hardware (In)Security and Making the GameTank – A New, Real 8-Bit Game Machine will certainly appeal to those of us who keep a hot soldering iron within arm’s reach, while Rolling Recon & Tire Prints: Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Remote Shenanigans via Rogue Tire Stem RF and Get More Radio Frequency Curious will certainly appeal to the radio enthusiasts.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 339: The Vape Episode, A Flying DeLorean, And DIY Science

September 26, 2025 by Tom Nardi 7 Comments

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this week’s episode off with an update on the rapidly approaching 2025 Supercon in Pasadena, California. From there they’ll talk about the surprisingly high-tech world of vapes, a flying DeLorean several years in the making, non-contact pulse monitoring, and the potential of backyard radio telescopes to do real astronomy. You’ll hear about a dodecahedron speaker, a page turning peripheral, and 3D printed tools for unfolding boxes. They’ll wrap things up by taking a look at the latest generation of wearable smart glasses, and wonder if putting a bank of batteries in your home is really with the hassle.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download in DRM-free MP3.

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A New Generation Of Spacecraft Head To The ISS

September 18, 2025 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

While many in the industry were at first skeptical of NASA’s goal to put resupply flights to the International Space Station in the hands of commercial operators, the results speak for themselves. Since 2012, the SpaceX Dragon family of spacecraft has been transporting crew and cargo from American soil to the orbiting laboratory, a capability that the space agency had lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Putting these relatively routine missions in the hands of a commercial provider like SpaceX takes some of the logistical and financial burden off of NASA, allowing them to focus on more forward-looking projects.

SpaceX Dragon arriving at the ISS for the first time in 2012.

But as the saying goes, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. As successful as SpaceX has been, there’s always a chance that some issue could temporarily ground either the Falcon 9 or the Dragon.

While Russia’s Progress and Soyuz vehicles would still be available in an emergency situation, it’s in everyone’s best interest that there be multiple backup vehicles that can bring critical supplies to the Station.

Which is precisely why several new or upgraded spacecraft, designed specifically for performing resupply missions to the ISS and any potential commercial successor, are coming online over the next few years.

In fact, one of them is already flying its first mission, and will likely have arrived at the International Space Station by the time you read this article.

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The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5" with Jerry R. Ehman's handwritten comment.

Listening For The Next Wow! Signal With Low-Cost SDR

September 18, 2025 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

As you might expect, the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has a fascination with radio signals from space. While doing research into the legendary “Wow! Signal” detected back in 1977, they realized that the burst was so strong that a small DIY radio telescope would be able to pick it up using modern software-defined radio (SDR) technology.

This realization gave birth to the Wow@Home project, an effort to document both the hardware and software necessary to pick up a Wow! class signal from your own backyard. The University reasons that if they can get a bunch of volunteers to build and operate these radio telescopes, the resulting data could help identify the source of the Wow! Signal — which they believe could be the result of some rare astrophysical event and not the product of Little Green Men.

Ultimately, this isn’t much different from many of the SDR-based homebrew radio telescopes we’ve covered over the years — get a dish, hook your RTL-SDR up to it, add in the appropriate filters and amplifiers, and point it to the sky. Technically, you’re now a radio astronomer. Congratulations. In this case, you don’t even have to figure out how to motorize your dish, as they recommend just pointing the antenna at a fixed position and let the rotation of the Earth to the work — a similar trick to how the legendary Arecibo Observatory itself worked.

The tricky part is collecting and analyzing what’s coming out of the receiver, and that’s where the team at Arecibo hope to make the most headway with their Wow@Home software. It also sounds like that’s where the work still needs to be done. The goal is to have a finished product in Python that can be deployed on the Raspberry Pi, which as an added bonus will “generate a live preview of the data in the style of the original Ohio State SETI project printouts.” Sounds cool to us.

If you’re interested in lending a hand, the team says they’re open to contributions from the community — specifically from those with experience RFI shielding, software GUIs, and general software development. We love seeing citizen science, so hopefully this project finds the assistance and the community it needs to flourish.

Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.

American Science And Surplus Ends Online Sales

September 17, 2025 by Tom Nardi 29 Comments

For nearly 90 years, American Science and Surplus has been shipping out weird and wonderful stuff to customers far and wide. In the pre-Internet days, getting their latest catalog in the mail — notable for its hand-drawn illustrations and whimsical style — was always exciting. From Romanian gas masks to odd-ball components, there was no telling what new wonders each issue would bring. In time, the printed catalog gave way to a website, but the eclectic offerings and hand-drawn images remained.

Unfortunately, those days are officially no more. Earlier this week, American Science and Surplus had to make the difficult decision to shutter their entire mail order division. It’s no secret that the company as a whole had been struggling over the last few years. Like many small businesses they were hit hard during the COVID-19 years, and while they made it through that particular storm, they faced skyrocketing operational costs.

Earlier this year, the company turned to crowd funding to help stay afloat. That they were able to raise almost $200,000 speaks to how much support they had from their community of customers, but while it put the company in a better position, the writing was on the wall. The warehouse space required to support their mail order operations was simply too expensive to remain viable.

But it’s not all bad news. At least two of the company’s physical storefronts, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Geneva, Illinois will remain open and operate under the ownership of the employees themselves. The fate of the third store in Park Ridge, Illinois is less clear. They currently don’t have a buyer, but it sounds like they haven’t given up hope of selling it yet.

Anyone in the Illinois area feel like getting some buddies together and buying a turn-key surplus business?