https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DumgHz56IjI
HRCC is great resource for most radio things. This is one of his shorter videos on meshtastic. Otherwise https://meshtastic.org is a good start too
Discussion
Do you think if I got 4-5 people from our meetup group it would be enough to start a little network around here (assume we all live in a like 20 mile radius in Western Massachusetts)?
It's line of site and 20mi is definitely doable. Depends on terrain though. Worth a shot. And you may already have other nodes in your area.
reasonable to start with?
https://shop.uniteng.com/product/meshtastic-mesh-device-station-edition/
So, in a valley at the base of the blue ridge, probably a no go without some outlandish antenna mount? I guess if someone was at the top of the mountain it would work? Is there a map showing networks around the US anywhere? Sorry if this is easily available somewhere, I lazily searched for at least 2 mins.