A possible loss to the link across the Pennines

While my plan was to run a mesh covering the former Richmondshire district I inadvertently found it was possible to link to the whole of Yorkshire (all 4 counties of Yorkshire) and beyond to Manchester and Merseyside via a repeater on Winter Hill (Winter Hill South if you have seen it advertise), the operator of that repeater has announced on the MeshCore discord that he is going to turn it off, citing mental health reasons, which to me I find somewhat strange as I have found working with MeshCore devices and MeshCore itself is actually beneficial to my mental health as it means I am focusing on something rather than the root cause of my problems, I personally feel that if this individual does have mental health problems then if he feels he needs to step back then absolutely that choice is his.

This doesn't mean the end of a wide area link, far from it, all the Yorkshire Mesh repeaters including YM-Catterick which I have made an honourary member of Richmondshire Mesh as it is in the coverage area, are still there, there are repeaters located up in Stockton-on-Tees and Yarm which we may also be able to link into, opening the possibilty of coverage across the North East of England though between Stockton and Sunderland the MeshCore landscape appears to be empty, in fact the next repeater north after the Teesside area repeaters are in fact located on the wrong side of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

As I am planning on promoting MeshCore heavily around my local area I am also thinking about getting the Amateur radio clubs involved as a lot of Amateur radio guys and gals, not just myself, use MeshCore (I had a chat with one briefly in Bradford today as it happens on MeshCore, proof this system can work over amazing distances when it wants to which is why I liked the link from Winter Hill being there, getting into Manchester.

The local radio club is a good spot for a repeater, it is in my plans to put one there (see repeaters page), but just anywhere high to put a repeater is good no matter where it is, this could well enable communications over a vast area, and I for one am for that as should this country's mobile phone infrastructure fail, MeshCore will be there no matter what as it is entirely off-grid, so I welcome long-distance links into the Richmondshire Mesh.

The Anzio Catterick repeater has proven itself on a temporary antenna, it works, it can access the wider mesh, the antenna will be changed for a better one as soon as that can be done, it is a shame that this will now take place after the loss of a link over to Manchester but we still have a massive chunk of Yorkshire in range, my chat with people in Bradford have proven this.