Not pictured: being overwhelmed at the thought of properly dealing with all the frogs when you find a different obsession, then just stuffing them in a box and hiding it.

It's pretty useful for off-grid comms. It's also pretty cheap to get started. I got two Heltec V3 devices that include the little antennas with them for $37 total.

If you get with one of your local Meshtastic groups, there will likely already be a bunch of people who use it. I joined a local group in San Antonio, TX and there are around 205 nodes run by a few dozen people throughout the city.

Obviously rural areas are going to be less people, but you'd be surprised how many people run it already.