The issue at Launch Canada

With my involvement with Launch Canada over the past few years, a constant theme has been communication issues.

While I am heading the drone operations, it is difficult for me to take over the entire networking system. However, I recognize that my interests and tenacity enable me to take steps to improve secondary communication channels in the event of a primary communications failure. 

As an overview, Launch Canada, as a launch event, takes place in the woods just south of Timmins, Ontario.  All there really is around is the periodic cabin and a lot of trees. 

From a communications standpoint, LCO communications have primarily been taking place over encrypted radio transmissions provided to us by one of the sponsors were a central repeater is located at the scaffolding shown below. 

The primary issue with the radio is that it can be easy to miss a transmission, especially when you are busy, and the repeater is a power-hungry solution.

So my secondary goal for the drone operations is to prove out a meshtastic transmission system at Launch Canada. The goal for 2026 is to relay the flag status of each pad to the others, seamlessly.  So far, I have put together a couple of devices and am working on implementing custom communication methods to display the pad status and determine the reliability, and gain a front and back understanding of these devices before implementing them into recovery systems at the competition.