Shout repeater mode / Shout broadcast mode / Optional shout sound notification setting

Product feedback & support
1

Optional shout sound notification setting: It would be nice to have the ability to set shouts to a different notification sound then direct messages. I think emergency messages should also have a different sound. A good choice might be the sound you get from the TV before an emergency broadcast notification.

Shout repeater mode: As I understand it the Gotenna will not repeat or pass on a shout message. It would be a useful feature to be able to put a Gotenna into a shout repeater mode that allows it to broadcast a shout by 1 or 2 hops.

1 hop would allow 1 Gotenna to be placed up high and cover a large area where people could shout at each other.

2 hops would allow multiple areas to be shout linked.

Shout broadcast mode: This would allow someone to set up an informational shoutcast. 1 Gotenna placed up high would only pass on shouts from preselected Gotenna users. I see this useful at events to send out information.

Thought?

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@giqcass having a different notification alert for Shouts & Emergency chats is a neat idea.
We will attempt to add this via a future update.

You are correct. Shout chats are ā€˜not repeatedā€™ or meshed. As you may be aware, goTenna Mesh operates off a limited number of unlicensed RF frequencies. We found that Meshing shout messages, will require a large portion of these RF frequencies to be engaged for a long time, thus limiting the number of frequencies available for private chats.
We are currently exploring ways to get around this problem. The next generation of our Mesh protocol, may have support for Meshed shout messages. Look out for this update!

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Very glad to hear you will try to add the custom notifications.

I understand the problem of limited channels/bandwidth. We have very few UHF/VHF repeater pairs available in our area for Amateur radio repeaters. I believe there will be some new unlicensed frequencies becoming available in the near future(near by FCC standards). Hopefully some of those will allow expansion but I suspect they may require type certified radios and details are still scarce.

Thanks!

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I do like the Shout Broadcast Mode idea. That would be useful for EMs or places where people do a lot of hiking. They could use the shout to relay important safety information (like a severe thunderstorm warning or flash flood warning), without needing to know the GIDs of the people in the region, and the message would be capable of hopping. Iā€™d have that set to 3 hops or so, try to keep it localized, but knowing that some areas may take 2-3 hops to get to, depending on terrain.

Perhaps the number of hops could be manually set by the person, depending on the situation. There might be information that isnā€™t necessarily life saving, so they choose only 1 hop, versus a flash flood warning that they want to ensure gets several hops to cover the valley bottoms on the other sides of local ridges.

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I will like to suggest a 2nd form of Shout (or Emergency) that broadcast via normal internet connection (perhaps within 5km GPS radius of a user; can be current or last activation), and not dependent on having the GoTenna device being turned on.

I expect majority of us will have our GoTenna devices turned-off daily, but if there is indeed a situation that requires more nodes to be activated (emergency or otherwise), we can do so if we can be notified.

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I thought the emergency chat feature did mesh out which is why itā€™s for ā€œemergency use onlyā€?

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The emergency chat feature does mesh as you thought. The regular Shout feature currently does not but it appears shouts might also mesh after the next big update of Aspen Grove 2.0. We will hopefully see that early 2018.

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2.0 will be in Q3 or Q4, but updates to Aspen Grove will start as soon as March :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the clarification! :crossed_fingers: hoping for Q3 so I can play with it before it gets too cold out. My meshes should get plenty of use in 2018.

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This may not be the place and I havenā€™t seen it addressed anywhere else but is there a mechanism to limit any abuse of the Shout feature?

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You can adjust your settings such that you donā€™t receive Shout messages. You can do that by:

  1. Selecting ā€˜Settingsā€™ from the Side Menu.
  2. Selecting ā€™ Chat Settingsā€™.
  3. Under Shouts, Toggle off ā€˜Accept Incomingā€™.
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Thanks but I donā€™t think thatā€™s really getting to my point. Say I live in an earthquake prone area and rely on the gotenna after a tremor. If someone is sending garbage out and I turn off shouts altogether in my settings, then would I lose the potential to get any pertinent disaster related shouts?

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If you turned off Shouts, you would not receive any Shouts. We do not have a system that would allow you flag, so to speak, a user you perceive to be abusing the Shout feature.

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If you turned off shouts donā€™t the SOS / emergency messages still come through? I canā€™t remember. I also thought individual users could be blocked but I havenā€™t used the official app in a while.

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