Anyone interested in Meshtastic/Meshcore?

[Sean Reifschneider]

I've got some gear and seem to have largely figured things out as far as
sending/receiving.  Here's what I've figured out:

You need to configure your radio for US and Long Fast: Config -> LoRA and
set Region=United States, Use Presets=On, Presets=Long Range - Fast,
Frequency Slot=20

Then import the channels by opening this URL:
https://meshtastic.org/e/#CgMSAQEKLBIgTo6M6ucw87EdWvm8mexagqMFpl4Waj7jhfeDO5QwvnkaA0xVRyUBAAAAEhMIARj6ASALKAU4AUADSAFQHmgB
and tell it to "Replace" your existing channels.

You will now have a default public channel and it depends on a few things
how that shows up.  In the Android app it calls it "LongFast".  In the
https://client.meshtastic.org web configurator it calls it "Primary" and in
the iOS app it calls it something else.  I'm still trying to fully
understand how channels work with respect to the ordering of them, but it
seems like if you hard configure your frequency slot to 20, the ordering
doesn't matter as much.  20 is the default slot for the US in LongFast mode.

Now you should be able to send a message to "LongFast" and that will go to
everyone in the area, and also you can message to "LUG" to message the
Linux Users (currently there are two of us on).

I have also set up a MeshCore repeater around Drake and Taft.  However, I
can only see a neighbor down the street, so MeshCore seems extremely
limited right now.  I haven't actually been able to send a message to
anyone using mesh core yet.

Currently my devices are inside my house, so I don't have my peak range
yet.  Once I get it a bit more figured out I'll look at putting something
on the roof of my house and work, once I'm sure I'm not going to need to be
climbing up there multiple times to change configurations.  I'm kind of
leaning towards setting both of my solar nodes up as Mesh Core because
Meshtastic seems to have enough nodes that it isn't really necessary and
Mesh Core (from what I'm hearing) works a lot better once you have enough
penetration.  The real downside of Mesh Core is that you need a lot of
repeaters: Nodes you send messages on don't participate in the mesh, they
only communicate with repeaters, and you can't use a repeater to send
messages.  In Meshtastic you can configure a node to forward messages and
to send (the default config).  Many people who do Mesh Core have 2 nodes:
one repeater up high in their house and one client for sending/receiving.
But people in places with good Mesh Core setups like the PNW are sending
messages for Eugene Oregon to BC, CA fairly reliably it sounds like.  So
it'd be interesting to see if we can reach a tipping point where Mesh Core
can be useful (at Drake and Taft it doesn't seem to be usable at all).

On Mon, Jan 5, 2026 at 5:21 PM Sean Reifschneider <jafo00 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been thinking about adding a meshtastic router or two for a while
> here, but one of my coworkers has said he's interested as well, so last
> night I placed an order for some gear.  There's a little bit of activity
> around Fort Collins for Meshtastic and Meshcore.  Thought maybe some of the
> NCLUG folks might be interested in it as well.
>
> I'm planning on setting up a repeater on the roof at my house near Drake
> and Taft, and another one on a 2 story commercial building at Prospect
> and College.  Looks like there's around the same penetration of Meshtastic
> and Mesh Core around here.  The big issue seems to be that Mesh Core
> requires end devices to be able to reach a repeater node, where Meshtastic
> can route via client devices as well.  But, Core seems to be a lot more
> reliable.  If we had a repeater up at horsetooth, Core would probably be a
> no-brainer, but it's not clear how well it'll work with what I'm planning
> to add.  Probably will be an experiment, but there seem to be a couple
> Meshtastic repeaters around and a couple users.
>
> If you've read this far and are wondering what I'm talking about, these
> are both systems for off-grid communications using little devices and the
> 915MHz band to form meshes and route traffic.  Devices for example can be
> credit card, handheld radio, and also blackberry form factor devices.  Use
> cases are disaster communications (if cell grid were to fail for example),
> and they also have chatrooms for just general chatting or device-to-device
> DM.
>
> Sean
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.nclug.org/pipermail/nclug/attachments/20260110/63ed6490/attachment.htm>