AREDN mesh and Allstar private nodes
The full slide deck is still available: BBRC — Mesh and Allstar slides
Hardware for this project: New AREDN supported nodes (2023) on kit.co
Why AllStar on the mesh?
AllStarLink turns repeaters and hotspots into network-connected VOIP nodes. Run it over the AREDN mesh and you get club-wide voice linking that doesn’t touch the internet — RF on both ends, IP in the middle.
The plan, in two parts:
- Repeater linking — connecting club repeaters over the mesh (a work in progress, coming along)
- Private hotspots — SHARI Pi hotspots reaching the club repeater via mesh routes
802.11ac hardware
Newer AREDN-supported nodes brought 802.11ac to the mesh — wider channels and more throughput, which matters once you’re pushing VOIP streams around.
The kit.co list covers the specific devices.
Private vs public nodes
The club runs a mixture of private and public AllStar nodes. The reason some nodes are private: the club site sits behind firewall/NAT, so those nodes can’t be exposed publicly at this time. Going private keeps the node reachable across the mesh without needing inbound internet connectivity.
Further down the road: linking the club repeaters together using this same private node infrastructure.
What’s under the hood
- AllStarLink / Asterisk — the VOIP software powering each node
- HAMVOIP — the node distribution in use
- IAX — the protocol carrying voice between nodes across the mesh
- SHARI Pi — the all-in-one hotspot hardware (Raspberry Pi + duplex radio hat) each node runs on
Demo
The presentation closed with a live demo of the concept: two hotspots configured as AllStar peers, one keyed up on a UHF frequency — the audio crossed over the mesh LAN and exited the RF side of the second hotspot on a different UHF frequency. Private-node linking, end to end, on club equipment.