Can Meshtastic be operated in Austria without an amateur radio license?

Question

Hi,
I recently spoke with someone who's getting his Afu license, and when asked, his "trainer" told him that the Meshtastic can only be operated on 433 and 868 MHz with an AFu license. However, I can't find anything that supports or contradicts this. Perhaps someone here has something official I could look up. I haven't found anything in the Frequency Usage Ordinance (because I don't know where to look for it).

d82twf · Answer

I hope there is no misunderstanding... Meshtastic is nothing but a networking of LoraWAN devices - and these are nothing other than SRD so "short-range devices". The rules for this are clearly defined by the respective regulatory authority of the respective country. This is, for example, 25mW transmission power in the 868 MHz band at a duty cycle of 0.1%. I now know the rules for Germany well, which are described here: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sachgebiet/Telecommunications/Company_Institutions/Frequenzen/Generalzuteile/FunkanlagenGeringerReichlänge/2018_05_SRD_pdf.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7 This is likely to be similar in Austria. If you stick to the "Running Rules" (Tx Power, Antenna Win, Duty Cycle), you don't need an amateur radio license for operation in an ISM band. Now it's just that there are for the 433MHz band and 868MHz band devices. The 433MHZ-ISM band is in the middle of the amateur radio band, which ensures conflicts. This has already been done in the past with wireless headphones and car keys remote controls, so the 868MHz band has been created, which is an exclusive ISM band. So better use devices for the 868 band, then all are satisfied... Now there's probably a topic that is often misunderstood: An amateur radio operator could take a LoraWAN device and modify it accordingly, ie "Drill" and use it according to the parameters of his amateur radio license in the amateur radio band according to the band plan, indicating its call sign. This is only in the 433MHz band, because it's an amateur radio band. In the 868 MHz band, this is not possible, because the amateur radio also has to comply with the rules of the ISM rules. On the other hand, an amateur radio also has to address the rules of the ISM band to 433MHz if it operates the device, for example, commercial. So everything is not so easy, but if you adhere to the specifications, with Tx power, antenna gain and Duty-Cycle, you don't need a license within the ISB band - neither an amateur radio license (the 868MHz band is no amateur radio band anyway) nor a frequency allocation certificate from the federal network agency.