meh

in the US at least its about broadcast power level. HAMs can broadcast louder but cant enable encryption. default firmware shipped to the US limits your power level so you remain legal.

*i should add that is MY understanding of the situation and i’m no lawyer.

this is never going to be and was not designed to be a secret spy movie text network anymore than it is an instant messager replacement. the encryption has a ways to go yes but its also come a long way. the benefit of the platform is zero licensing entry with cheap gear. that communities can stand up together and use. or organizers can flash devices between uses and swarm a mesh if needed.

its fun building meshes that can cover a hundred miles but, to function like that you have to drastically shorten the messages. and repeat messages to deal with drops. the encryption overall is fine for what the mesh can do and what the appropriate use cases could be. not great but it’ll do.

for the handheld portables like a tdeck stick to flexible whips. it’s lesson you want to learn before breaking your first tdeck.

generally though these pocket devices are not stand alone solutions. they become useful in an established mesh network. If your area doesn’t have an existing community for this stuff, you dont travel to places with established meshes or you’re just getting started. plan on picking up at least one other small device. a heltec or rak with decent antenna would let you place it at a high point and experiment with what kind of range the tdeck gets.

the new firmware does a better job of generating keys, and now waits until after the radio region is set by a user. wiping and reflashing recreates the keys it got when a vender bulk flashed devices.

update the firmware to 2.6.11 by doing a wipe/update.