Its a LILYGO T3S3 (a module focused on handheld use) stuck into a housing I modeled myself and 3d printed out of ASA plastic. It has some Chinese "high gain" 915MHz antenna inside the grain silo looking part, which is oversize to prevent too much signal reflection/distortion from the plastic being too close to the antenna. Its powered by 18ga alarm system wire that I draped down the roof to a 5v power supply on the deck. And since I'm renting, non permanent modifications only, thus the clamp to the vent pipe.
Its what I had, just to get started. Quickly realized I needed to be on my roof to get any good connections in my node-sparse area haha.
So far it's working well, I have 13 consistent mesh connections with 3 direct connections, when before I would previously only get spotty connections to the mesh at all from inside my house.
I'll buy some better base station hardware later, once I put one up at my girlfriend's house a few miles away....
Im not clear on what the network is used for
That's fun the part - it's used by nerds testing the network, sending "ping". And others replying and setting up BBS systems.
Like…the old school BBS stuff? I thought there was texting and maybe email? Not sure as I am learning too. I’ve used BBSes in the past.
Meshtastic is basically just texting, but there are nodes people setup for BBS purposes.