[title]: <> (What is an RNode?)
## What is an RNode?
An RNode is an open, free and unrestricted digital radio transceiver. It enables anyone to send and receive any kind of data over both short and very long distances. RNodes can be used with many different kinds of programs and systems, but they are especially well suited for use with Reticulum.

RNode is not a product, and not any one specific device in particular. It is a system that is easy to replicate across space and time, that produces highly functional communications tools, which respects user autonomy and empowers individuals and communities to protect their sovereignty and privacy.

The RNode system is primarily software, which *transforms* available hardware devices into functional, physical RNodes, which can then be used to solve a wide range of communications tasks. Such RNodes can be modified and build to suit the specific time, locale and environment they need to exist in.

If you notice the presence of a circularity in the naming of the system as a whole, and the physical devices, it is no coincidence. Every RNode contains the seeds necessary to reproduce the system, and create more RNodes, and even to bootstrap entire communications networks, completely independently of existing infrastructure, or the lack thereof.

The production of one particular RNode device is not an end, but the potential starting point of a new branch of devices on the tree of the RNode system as a whole. This tree fits into the larger biome of Free & Open Communications Systems, which I hope that you - by using communications tools like RNode - will help grow and prosper.
