CicadaTAK

CicadaTAK turns your phone into a tactical team-awareness display for places with no cell service and no internet — backcountry, disaster areas, large properties, search grids, event perimeters. It is the companion app for CicadaTAK mesh nodes: open-source, sub-$200 radio gateways you build yourself (full instructions at cicadatak.com). Nodes form a self-healing 900 MHz HaLow mesh with miles of range, and every phone connected to a node shares one live tactical picture. LIVE TEAM MAP • Every teammate's position updates live on the map, with callsigns, colors, and breadcrumb trails • Offline map layers — download street, topo, and aerial imagery to the mesh and use them with zero internet • Drop markers, draw geofence zones, measure distance and bearing • Mesh health overlay shows every radio link, color-coded by live throughput ENCRYPTED TEAM CHAT • Text messaging across the mesh, end-to-end encrypted with your team passphrase • Share photos from camera or gallery — delivered over the mesh, never through a server • Delivery receipts: one check sent, two checks delivered • Canned quick replies for one-tap messaging on the move PUSH-TO-TALK VOICE • Real-time PTT voice to the whole team — live streaming audio, not recorded clips • Works with the screen locked • Optimized voice codec keeps audio clear even on marginal links MESH AWARENESS • Node list with signal strength, battery state, and per-node hardware status • Animated topology view — your whole mesh drawn as a live map-oriented graph • One-tap node ping with round-trip time and link quality LONG-RANGE LoRa BRIDGE • Nodes with LoRa hardware bridge to Meshtastic devices, extending reach to inexpensive handheld radios • Three privacy modes, from open interop to fully dark WORKS WITH TAK • Nodes can bridge positions to ATAK/TAK clients on the same network via Cursor-on-Target YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS • No accounts, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics • Everything travels phone → your own radio hardware → teammates' phones • We never see your location, messages, photos, or voice — there is no server to see them IMPORTANT • Full functionality requires CicadaTAK node hardware. Without a node, the app runs in Standalone Mode: your GPS position on the map, offline-map browsing, and every screen navigable — mesh chat, PTT, and team positions activate when you connect to a node. • CicadaTAK nodes operate in the 902–928 MHz license-free ISM band, legal in the US, Canada, and Mexico. No radio license required. • Build your nodes at cicadatak.com — open-source hardware and firmware.