Meshtastic Help and Advice

What is Meshtastic

Meshtastic® is a long-range off-grid communication platform using LoRa (Long Range) inexpensive low-power radios. It can be used for hobby or for serious use in areas without existing or reliable communications infrastructure or if the main grid communication networks go down. The project is 100% community driven and open source!

Remember: The Meshtastic Project is experimental and the Firmware is Beta or Alpha. Its not perfect but being improved all the time. You will be part of that experiment.

Getting started, Beginner's Guide

Always start your Meshtastic Journey by visiting and reading the official Meshtastic Website Official Meshtastic getting started

⚠ NEVER power your node radio without an Antenna (Aerial) Attached it could damage the device

(Setting up your first Meshtastic Node)

With reference to the official guide :-

1. Install the official meshtastic Firmware release, Beta are the more stable releases and Alpha are more cutting edge trial release CHECK MESHTASTIC FIRMWARE ISSUES
2. You will now need to configure your settings. Do this by either using the web interface with your node connected via wifi or bluetooth to a computer or via an app on your phone.
   • Use the Official Meshtastic Web Client Interface (must be used with Chromium browser)
   • Andoid Meshtastic app from the Android Play store Latest Meshtastic Android App from Play store
   • Apple IOS app from the app store Latest Meshtastic IOS App from MAC App Store
   • Pair your phone app with the node via bluetooth (done within the app but may need to also check phone BT settings)
   • Set the correct REGION for the country you are in e.g EU_868 or US if not set correctly it will not work
   • Set the long Name and short Name of your node
   • Most other settings should remain as default, can you can set a location or you can give authority for your node and app to get location from your phones GPS
   • Ideally its best to have a second node (either yours or a friends and have it close by) so you check the node communicates with each other
   • Use the default "LongFast" channel which has a default password key of AQ==
   • More information to be added contact the meshtastic discord channel for help or ours if your are local
3. Check the rest of this page for advice on usage and gaining contacts

Getting contacts and better range, pick up more nodes

Always remember that Meshtastic Frequencies [868MHz Europe], [915MHz in the USA] coupled with with the very low power the maximum your signal can reach is Line Of Sight That's basically your visible Horizon from where your radio is sited, it will also be heavily restricted from any objects in its path, building, trees hills etc.

Line of Sight (Horizon) at sea-level for an average height person is up to 4.5Kilometers (2.8 Miles) due to the curvature of the earth. Try this Very simple Line Of Sight / Distance to Horizon Calculator

Your line of sight from where you are operating is based on height above sea level of your location and in relation to local terrain and surrounding buildings and hills.

If you are standing on a high mountain or very tall building then the line of sight to another tall building or high mountain could be much further away. The longest land line of sight in the British isles is between Merrick and Mount Snowdon 144-miles (231.746KM)

Therefore the height of your antenna (aerial) drastically effects the performance and range. Rough rule of thumb is an extra meter in height will get you an extra Kilometer further line of sight and also above objects.
There is a reason all commercial radio transmitting towers are very high! and usually on top of hills.

Meshtastic / Lora Antennas

Now if you live in a densely populated area with lots of mesh users you may get away with the small antenna the Lora radio shipped with sitting on the windowsill as your signal may pick up somebody very local and then mesh to further away contacts.

If on the other hand you don’t have lots of other mesh users or you’re in a dip or behind hills or large buildings then the best thing you can do is invest in a proper antenna.

Mount your Antenna as high as possible (optimum is outside in free space above your building, safely and within local regulations).

Not all antenna’s are equal in fact wildly different. Because radio Frequency is directly related to the wavelength, you must use a correct tuned antenna that’s made for the frequency in your Meshtastic region i.e. 868MHz for Europe and 915MHz for USA.

Ensure you get the right Meshtastic Connectors for your Node and Antenna Meshtastic RF Connectors

BUYER BEWARE there are many antennas available by online sellers that are not always what they claim, maybe wrong frequency band and usually nowhere the gain factor they claim. You may get lucky but I recommend buying a reputable brand ideally from there own channels. In the UK the two manufactures that stand out are Parada and McGill Microwave. Currently my Pole antenna is a McGill Microwave 6dBi from their official eBay store at £29.95. I can also recommend the portable whip antenna sold by Parada which is perfect for mobile.

Antenna Mounting

Antennas for meshtastic should be mounted vertically. Antennas designed to mount on poles can mounted other ways but work much better when mounted on a metal pole as intended (I did much testing on this). The actual aerial part should be above the top of the pole

At these high frequencies every metre of cable adds some loss of signal you can mount the node in a waterproof container and have the Antenna fitted strait to the radio nodes RF output connector. or use high quality cable designed for microwave such as LMR400 and keep it as short as possible (3M of LMR400 = 0.5dBi loss of both transmit power and receiving signals)

Leave your Nodes on

Because Meshtastic works by relaying messages "mesh" from one to another its important you leave your node on 24/7 else it breaks the link

MQTT or Not to MQTT

MQTT stands for Message Queuing Telemetry Transport and is a built in feature of Meshtastic, you can connect your node to your local internet by ethernet or wifi. It is way of getting nodes if you are in a completely isolated area with no other nodes within radio contact, however... When MQTT is turned on, you are potentially broadcasting your entire mesh's traffic onto the public internet. This includes messages and position information. The default channel (LongFast) on the public MQTT server usually has a lot of traffic. It can also flood local nodes so nobody can transmit because mesh only transmits when the channel is clear. I do NOT therefore recommend it.

Radio atmospheric uplift

As well as your antenna radiating radio waves outwards some radiate upwards into the the atmosphere and in certain atmospheric conditions these can reflect (bounce back down) to far away places well beyond the line of sight.

Radio tropospheric ducting

Usually the higher up you are in the earth's atmosphere the colder the air is, however sometime when we have high air pressure it causes a temperature inversion. This causes a layer of air in the troposphere to be a higher temperature than the layer of air below it (a duct)

This makes some radio waves bounce back down to earth, and because it bounces at an angle, the radio signal ends up far away from the source causing an uplift in signal distance.

Image below is a screenshot of my Pole1 Node in Bedford UK showing signal uplift due to Tropospheric Ducting on 27th July 2024

Men In Sheds Milton Keynes – A place to build. learn and socialise meninshedsmk.org.uk

Join the Local Meshtastic Community

If you are also based in the Local UK Buckinghamshire & Bedfordshire area check out our social medea links below, where you can find out more about other nodes in the area and help each other complete the mesh network.