Greetings all, I’m running CivTak on my Android with the purpose of next-level C2 at large airsoft events. Does anyone have any experience or insight into how to pair a goTenna device with CivTak, if at all possible, and which device(s) would be best. Thank you in advance!
1 Like
What’s “CivTak” ? I googled it but get varying results.
is this it? - http://www.civtak.org/
Uh, yes although I don’t know about that site. It’s the civilian version of ATAK- Android Tactical Assault Kit, or Android Team Awareness Kit.
2 Likes
Is there a better site to get some background info at? I was trying to find some detail on how that app pulls data and from where.
And where do you get the apk? I didn’t find it in the play store.
There’s this, and maybe the wikipedis for ATAK would help. https://atakmap.com/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Tactical_Assault_Kit
1 Like
It was never available on the app store, and is no longer available for download from their site.
Ok, where does it pull it’s info from? Cell network , wi-if, or maybe an ad-hoc setup?
ATAK is now for both civilian & professional use — it was renamed to Android Team Awareness Kit for that reason. (Assault Kit is sort of jarring…) goTenna Mesh & Pro both have an ATAK plug-in, available for an extra cost. You can contact the Pro sales team for that via gotennapro.com
3 Likes
Once you have the (correct) goTenna TAK plug-in installed (i.e., mesh or pro) and loaded it is pretty easy. Turn on your goTenna device, launch ATAK, allow it to turn on Bluetooth or already have it turned on, launch the goTenna plug-in within ATAK, select at the pop-up which type of goTenna device you are using, and then click pair.
As far as I can tell, you can only send shouts from ATAK via goTenna.
The above works for ATAK civ 3.8.1.1, at least.
4 Likes
Launch the GoTenna plug in within TAK? That’s the part that I don’t know how to find or access. Will that only populate a section if I have the GoTenna plug in? What I mean is that so far I haven’t even found a section with which to attempt to pair to something, or load a device. It should be able to do much more than that, as I was experimeting with geofences yesterday and it has the option to monitor either via a live feed or other TAK users, for example letting me know when a teammate has entered a “combat zone” or “safe zone” via the geofence perimeter I can place.
Correct – you have to have the goTenna plug-in, which is a separate apk. Once loaded, there is a “goTenna” option in the menu. Check with your CivTak source to see if they have the goTenna plug-in apk or contact the folks Daniela mentions above to purchase it. Note that you’ll need the Mesh plug-in specifically, and not the Pro plug-in, if you are using goTenna Mesh.
1 Like
Seems to be available here:
https://evr2est.us/downloads
EDIT: Treat this link/site with an abundance of caution. No idea if it is legit.
2 Likes
That is a legit site for the Air Force Eagle Vision program.
I heard gotenna stopped the consumer (mesh) version past atak 3.8. I cant use the pro where i am at because there is no available vhf/uhf freqs for data. We need them all for voice. Please bring the consumer version back to ATAK we need it for that radio band! ATAK is at 3.10 now please help gotenna
3 Likes
gotenna forcing ATAK users to go with the pro x version just priced them out of use for most of the public safety agencies. its very disappointing
2 Likes
I was at the ESRI Dev Summit recently and I can say they are exploring this space with the possibility of supporting mesh networking with their own mobile apps soon.
They have an open source demo app that is super similar in basic functionality to the “TAKs”:
Our internal development has centered around GoTenna for offline location sharing so my ears perked up when they mentioned mesh networking. Turns out their initial target is GoTenna as well so I’m expecting big things from in the next few months.
2 Likes
Severely off topic:
@mwilli1178, TAK/CivTAK needs a TAK plugin from goTenna like @danielagotenna mentioned.
Another way of using TAK for your event. Just buy a couple of WiFI AP’s on extender mode and distribute it around the event site. And share data using multicast. 
Using CivTak with the gotenna plug in, I will get this error notification when pairing is off and no gotenna is connected.
If I pair my gotenna everything works great and I don’t get this error notification. But when I stop using gotenna but continue to run CivTak it always pops on.
Can someone help or point me in the right direction?
1 Like
What TAK version are you using? Is it the 3.8.1-civ version? If so - also had issues with it not working with Mesh - works well with the V1’s.
1 Like