I'm curious about this, too. I live in a hilly area, and have seen two neighbors turn one on. One should have direct line of sight, but forest and 900m range, the other is 1.2 km away, and appears to be up and over a ridge. Maybe my device is high enough on the second floor to have direct LOS, but I doubt it.
The other one, I've got just naked (no case) sitting on my dashboard as I drive around. I mostly just look at it's results every week or so and see what it's seen.
It's really like a HAM radio - you can cruise with your radio on, and listen to what's out there...
But the real difference here is with #meshtastic you have a QR Code for each #meshtastic radio channel - so you send that (or scan that) into a friend's #meshtastic app (and therefore into their #meshtastic device), and then the messages will get routed through the mesh network to your friend's device...HAM you have to be on the radio to get the message, but with #meshtastic just the device needs to be meshed so it can listen, and you can get your messages later (just like traditional text messaging).
It's really pretty cool...if you have folks in your area you can connect to (and get your devices "meshed" to theirs) you'll have that much more additional range...
