I’m in Brooklyn and I’ve been carrying around my device whenever I’m out, shouting test messages. Somebody has yet to respond.
I’m curious about creating a gotenna sanctioned time to test the mesh capabilities of the emergency channel.
It might be a nice to build community/ enthusiasm.
Maybe once a month? First Tuesday?
Sundays maybe fun too, take it out with you while doing things around town.
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I like this idea! Also you should try “shouting” in the vicinity of our office in downtown Brooklyn (we’re at Willoughby St. & Lawrence) and you’ll get plenty of responses (plus a bunch of weird QA messages in Shouts for sure)!
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So do I! I think we should have Mesh Net Mondays @ 8PM local time across the US for starters. What y’all think?
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Seems like a great idea. Like testing EAS and tornado sirens regularly.
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@dbfish you recommend in your awesome Emergency Guide (link below) a Test day.
Once we choose a date, how do we let people know? I have a feeling only a small percentage of owners are following these threads.
Is there some kind of theatrical element that could make this sonething someone in the press would write about?
A giant “Game” of telephone? People standing on bridges and rooftops? What could be passed along? What could be the objective? Some kind of scavenger hunt/geocaching? Drone footage always helps… 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cvozMd2ZeiZpcFJnlZ2GPYFHux-ysHlKzbC1F8rt9aI/edit?usp=sharing
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I wrote about this in a different thread somewhere, I’ll have to go find out. Thanks for the shout out @Jones718 on the emergency guide!
Basically, we agree on a day/time and test method, then hope Gotenna gets on board and pushes it over their social channels to as many users as possible (maybe make a banner on the top of imeshyou map).
I’ve looked over the mesh map - the only places this would work easily are cities with dense coverage, except then the radio range goes way down. So… be prepared to not hear from anyone most of the time, unless you manage to get a relay node set up on an elevated location (get on the roof!) that can extend your reach.
This would also be a good time to test out temporary relay station designs - I’ve taped a unit to a 20 foot collapsible tent pole and tied that off to a fence, improves range by about 1/3 in suburban areas. Throwing a long rope over a high tree branch to pull up high, or driving to an elevated location where you can see over a city, top of a parking garage, etc.
Only 1/1, group, and emergency messages mesh, so I would use the emergency channel, and limit messages to only one every 5 minutes. Set a time limit - only from 8 to 8:30pm local time zone, send a “TEST - This is a test emergency mesh message from near <street intersection/landmark>” message (or send a pin near your location for security), that way everyone can see how far the messages reach, but they are limited and end at a specific time.
If users find other users, start a 1/1 message, or group chat, and continue the chat there as long as you want.
Another way to find people and get the word out about mesh test days would be to look on the imeshyou map, and drive around to near those node locations and send a Shout message “Hey gotenna user! We plan on doing a test on sundays 8 to 8:30pm on the emergency channel. I have a relay node at (send location pin) etc etc if you want to test range”. I wouldn’t wait more than a few minutes for a response, since my relay node is not always connected to a phone, but I do check it for shout messages every few days.
It would be nice if Gotenna also allowed messaging GID’s over the internet using the app, to help coordinate when internet access is available, using encryption and anonymity, although I guess we could use Signal or Whatsapp or something like that…
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Sorry for wall of text… LOL. The related topic was this one - “Regional Group Chats”
http://community.gotennamesh.com/t/regional-group-chats/371/4
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I do this al the time. Maybe one day I will get a response.
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I can confirm we’ll do everything we can to promote whatever the community ends up coming up with. And of course, we’re working to hire a full-time dev to implement features that interconnect imeshyou.com and the goTenna Mesh hardware/app — and eventually, we’ll take learnings from this more manual, community-driven approach to make things more automated and seamless later on. 
One suggestion is to maybe try it in an area where a lot of Mesh Community people have already self-identified as being located — because yes, most goTenna Mesh users aren’t even on this message board (or map yet) — and see what works within a test-group and then blow it up to other areas? Regional groups that seem to be strong on here include SF Bay Area, Seattle, NYC as far as I can tell, for what it’s worth!
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Thinking out loud here. The use of social media (twitter /face book) is probably going to be best use for getting the word out quickly to users who choose to join/participate. Have Individual twitter/ Facebook accounts created something like gotenna- Dallas, and so on. Keep the account private, request to join group. Set up monthly test days. Plan, have some fun, etc. Report back here.
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Google “3-3-3 radio plan”. You might have to also add “prepping” to the search terms.
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where’d y’all end up here? i’m into this though i’m not in a dense gotenna mesh area yet. maybe the sf bay area or seattlecould test this out first & report back?
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I know a lot of NWS offices do NOAA Weather Radio tests on Wednesdays at 11 am local time (weather permitting, of course). I’m not sure if that particular time would work for mesh users (perhaps biweekly or monthly?), but figured I’d throw it out there. Also, consider when various states do tornado (or other) drills as part of their severe weather week, it would be good to have a goTenna test then, as well.
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It’s been a while, (family stuff took over) but I still wan to do this. Could we pick a day to test and promote it @gua742 you suggested Mondays at 8:PM While I appreciate the alliteration, I’m deep into putting my kids to bed around 8PM.
Anybody think a weekend time would be good? Maybe a larger window like 2 hours? Maybe Sunday 2-4PM? You could try different locations as you go about your sunday…soccer practice, Home Depot, boozey brunch… etc You wouldn’t have t look at your device the whole time, you could just make sure it’s on, and if you got a message, report back eventually. Yes @dbfish It seems this would only work in a handful of US & European Cities & Singapore (!) But it would be cool to see If I could get a message to New Jersey from Brooklyn… I’d think Once a month would be sufficient, maybe even less so people dont get tired of messages telling them to turn on their devices…
@brunota2003 Wednesday’s at 11:00 Could work too, but something tells me, that a weekend time might be better. At least it is for me.
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I agree with others here that the Bay Area would be a GREAT place to try this sort of thing. There are LOTS of mesh owners as well as easily accessible high points from which you could probably contact many people at once. It makes me want to hike up Mission Peak. I’m sure you would contact more than a few folks from 2500ft directly above Silicon Valley.
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I think the idea would be to pick a day and each community would test at the same time (in their respective time zones).
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There’s really only three ways to find a good time - Gotenna just picks one and sends it to everyone, start with users from a city online like seattle is already doing, or send out shouts/emergency mesh test messages to broadcast and find people (most difficult)
I think something the imeshyou map could really help with (paging @danielagotenna not sure who is working on the website now) is asking for an email address for every node dropped on the map, then default opt-in them to a group for their city, so messages posted to their city group notify them via email, to help connect users that don’t go LOOK for the forums and start contributing. I’m guessing people are dropping nodes on the map in the HOPE of being part of a mesh community, if I just buy gotenna to use personally I wouldn’t do that, so helping connect them via a community board for their city would be a great step in meeting that goal.
We’re running ours in northeast Los Angeles on Monday nights between 1830 and 1930 to coincide with two FRS nets.
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Seems Monday evening is a popular time. I can give the kids an iPad for 45 minutes (But for the record: I’d much rather fly a kite with a node above the east river on a Sunday!!)
Thank for the Seattle heads up. Seems they are still working on getting traction.
Definitely would be great to ping people on the map.
I def think there is room for some interactive game/scavenger hunt/theater piece using loaner nodes to get people into the potential… But that’s for another thread.
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How is it going? Are you testing on the emergency channel? How is response?