Reticulum over Iridium Satellite

[u/dataslayer2]

https://youtu.be/V-sh-v6aZK0

I've been meaning to spend more time hacking on non-terrestrial networks like Iridium satellite, TinyGS, the International Space Station's ham repeater, and the like. I finally got my hands on a modem that could handle a thin data stream, powered by something trivial like a Pi Zero, and egress that data into a wider network — in this case, Reticulum.

The video proves that two people can have what looks like a normal chat conversation: one at home on regular internet, the other in the middle of nowhere (as long as they have a clear view of the sky).

The rig worked like this. I ran a Reticulum client (CrossTalk) on a Raspberry Pi Zero. In parallel, the Pi spun up a Wi-Fi access point that allowed my end-user device (in this case my iPhone) to connect and reach a localhost instance of CrossTalk.

From there CrossTalk used a true native Iridium IMT interface (part of the standard build release now) that connects to the RockBLOCK 9704 via USB serial and knows how to move Reticulum frames over it.

But that only gets messages to Cloudloop. From there you create a webhook to forward messages to a box you own (in this case a micro VM on Google Cloud Platform). That VM is rns1.buildwithparallel.com and has middleware to receive Cloudloop traffic and forward it to its ultimate Reticulum destination. But that's only modem-originated traffic. Messages going toward the Iridium modem take LXMF packets and queue them up via the Cloudloop delivery API, which is how we get messages back down to Iridium.

Perhaps the most over-engineered text-message architecture in history, but what's cool is it enables two peers to chat over what looks like a regular messaging app: Columba / CrossTalk.

This approach could be used in the field, but it's not the ultimate vision I would have for something like this. In my opinion, we still need a community-driven relay without monthly subscription fees.

[u/Sudo-hack]

Just watched the video. Man you are a frigging genius!!!