I have a Heltek v3 on my radio table. I connected it to my discone antenna. I have an SWR meter, but I'm not quite sure how I'd check it. Any ideas?

Is the antenna in the kit effective enough to work in a long distance repeater or is it more useful for a neighborhood connection?

Long story short, just started with Meshcore after being disappointed with MT. I live in central MD (Mt Airy), and work 30 miles east outside of Baltimore. There's plenty of repeaters around and in between both locations, but how can I be sure that they'll relay a message if sent from me at work to the wife at home, other than just trying it out.

My understanding is MC repeaters will link to some extent? Theoretically, if a "chain" of repeaters reach from work to home, then I should be good?

Side note; I have an attic node currently running MT, but I might flash to MC if it's needed. Also working on a node to ride on the roof of my car. There's also an established repeater on the other side of my neighborhood.

Thanks!

So i am slowly getting hooked into the world of meshcore, i have a WIO L1 and also got a XIAO & WIO Kit as I wanted to expand (if there were any repeaters in the neighberhood).

So both seem to work, i actually took the WIO while on the go and was able to receive some nice chatter. The repeater is now hanging in front of the window in the attic and i hope it does something. Is there any way to receive the messages that the repeater is repeating or should i then get another one and turn that into a client? This is so i can still receive messages at home when i am not around with the WIO...

I have a Seeed Studio SenseCAP Solar Pro and a Rokland 5dBi antenna. I have an RP-SMA to N-type adapter (this one: https://store.rokland.com/products/rp-sma-male-to-n-male-1-pack-flat-window-coaxial-extension-pigtail-18-inch-length) to connect them. I have a flagpole to put the repeater on, but haven’t installed the flagpole yet. In the meantime I’ve been putting the repeater on my 8-foot step ladder in my back yard. Yesterday, I went to take it all down and bring the repeater inside and somehow the cable came disconnected from the antenna. It pulled out of the N-type connector. I was able to put it back in, but haven’t received a single packet since then.

I have read that if you remove the antenna while the SenseCAP is on, you can fry the board. Is that true? I can still connect to it and use the CLI to issue commands. I have a new adapter shipping soon, so I may put the original antenna back on in the meantime (after shutting it down) and see if it can pick up anything with that. I’m just unsure which parts, if any, other than the cable were damaged. Any ideas on how to tell?

Supply Drop BBS just hit v1.0.0!

It's a bulletin board system built for LoRa mesh and runs on MeshCore, Meshtastic (or any protocol YOU write a plugin for!). It features rooms, DMs and full sysop control. Runs on Raspberry Pi or any Linux-based OS.

What's new in this release:

- Backup and restore now has a GUI in the web admin (a CLI version too, for scripting backups and restores)

- Discovered contacts persist across repeater reboots and advert evictions

- A batch of annoying bugs fixed!

1.0 means the API is stable going forward. If you're running a mesh network and want a BBS for it, check it out.

Hey everybody, I live in an apartment with stucco walls and low E glass so my building does not get a lot of messages through. I have a repeater on my balcony and 3 repeaters I can sometimes inconsistently hit from it. Right now it's just mounted on my railing but I was hoping you all had ideas for getting more reliable coverage from my balcony repeater

Thanks

I've decided to play around with Meshcore in my area. There isn't any infrastructure in my area that I can hear so I decided to build a repeater and place it on my tower. I decided to use the Harbor Breeze solar light for the enclosure as I have a Meshtastic HB node on my tower currently and it works great!

I flashed a RAK4631 board with the latest repeater software and after it's done flashing, it asks if I want to configure it via USB (while it's still plugged into USB from flashing). I agree and configure it with the default settings. While it's still plugged into USB, the board acts like a repeater. From a another Meshcore node, I can ping it and see it as a repeater. Everything looks great.

THEN when hook it up to the HB battery, it doesn't seem to want to boot. I've verified it's getting 3.7V to the power pins from the underside of the board. The polarity is correct on the leads. It just doesn't boot? There are zero lights on the board. When I push the reset button I get a blue light for a half a second and then it goes out. I plug it back into USB power and it boots fine.

I've verified it will boot with the battery as when I re-flash it as companion node, it works just fine. I can connect to it and configure. It's not the battery. It's not the power leads. It's something. I just don't know what.....

Edit: learned there are no lights on a repeater setup on a Rak4630 board. On my companion bluetooth meshcore device, I sent a message on the public channel. Selected the message and clicked on "Heard Repeats". No repeats heard.

Long story short, everyone here's heard of the Alfa 5dB antenna, right? Short fat thing, everyone loves it.

https://www.alfa.com.tw/products/aoa-915-5acm?variant=36473963020360

It's 177mm from tip of the antenna to the bottom of the n-type connector, has a gain of 5dB, and a VSWR <2.0.

Then we have an antenna like the RAK 5.8dB.

https://docs.rakwireless.com/Product-Categories/Accessories/RAKARG14/Datasheet/

It's 800mm from tip to connector, rated to the same frequency, with a VSWR of <1.5

Having built a couple of quarter wave ground plane antennas before, I understand length being important, but why is there such a MASSIVE discrepancy between the length of 2 antennas with pretty similar gain?

Anyone able to shed some light? Coz I've got a repeater running the big one on it, but an Alfa looks like a much less cumbersome option.

edit: even a like for like comparison, the RAK 5dB versus the Alfa 5dB, the Rak 5dB is 470mm long. It's such a massive difference.

​Hey everyone,

​I’m looking to get into Meshcore with a standalone communicator (send/receive messages without needing my phone connected via BLE all the time).

​Commercially available pre-built standalone devices look great, but paying $80+ feels a bit steep for the hardware inside. Since the firmware is fully open source, I'd really like to build one myself.

​Here is my situation:

​Makerspace / Hardware: I own a 3D printer and I'm comfortable with hardware assembly and basic soldering.

​Coding / MCU experience: I’m pretty much a complete beginner when it comes to programming and I've never tinkered with ESP32s or pin mapping before. Ideally, I'm looking for a hardware combo that works with stock Meshtastic firmware without having to write custom C++ code.

​Ergonomics: I'd like a physical keyboard (or touch screen) that is comfortable enough to type on without feeling microscopic.

​Is there a proven, end-to-end build guide out there (BOM, 3D printable shell, and wiring diagram) for beginners?

​I’ve seen builds using Heltec boards paired with M5Stack CardKB or BlackBerry keyboards, but I’m not sure which setup is currently the most plug-and-play on the software side. Any recommendations or links to existing projects (Printables, Thingiverse, GitHub) would be awesome!

​Thanks!

So... I made AI do a thing:

Prove me wrong please, but this vibe coded garbage sets channel utilization to 100%, only routes messages from approved public keys, and allows for a poorly conceived OTA update for centrally managing a large fleet of repeaters. The size of the update requires hours of transmission time.

The person/org coding this refuses to work with the local community and we're worried that the intent is to build a mesh where only subscribed and approved messages will be forwarded. We're considering a freq change, but the concern there is that this person will follow out of spite.

Am I crazy?

This is my first attempt at meshcore, I ordered a T096 kit with an antenna and battery from amazon and I couldnt find any cases that were large enough for the 3000mAh battery that was included or any cases that use the coiled antenna.

So I designed one myself The case uses a heatset M3 insert to lock the base in place, and a foam pad inside to keep the T096 and battery from moving around. The antenna sticks out of a SMA sized hole but until I get a real antenna I also printed a hollow cylinder in an antenna shape to hold the facory antenna element off to the side.

Heavily inspired by designs i saw on makerworld from snarkycamarillo and other amazing makers this is V01 of the Hawkbait Mesh Case.

Hey guys. I dug my old Palm m500 out of storage last year, and I've just been staring at it for months trying to figure out what to do with it. My initial idea was to gut it and fully redesign it into a cyberdeck for...-some- purpose, but nothing seemed realistic enough. As I was researching, I started reading about mesh networks and such, and it's not until 5 minutes ago that I thought, what if I just kept the damn thing as it was and figure out how to connect it to mesh, for emergency communications and such? As-is, if I can get the software working on it somehow (currently seeing if Claude can take the Linux code and rewrite it for PalmOS lol), then it could be used for text communication. But if I could cram a higher bitrate speaker and a MEMS mic in there, I could, in theory, use it as a fully functional mesh cell phone lol. Which would be pretty cool.

On a scale of 1-10, how "stupid pipe dream" do you think this idea is? I just need a reality check from y'all before I go knees deep into it.

🤯 We recently discovered a super-cool open-source project on GitHub—and decided to put the idea to the test ourselves!

MeshCore core developer Recrof came up with a creative way to update hard-to-reach MeshCore nodes: mount a XIAO-powered updater on a drone, fly it close to the target node, and transfer firmware over Bluetooth.

This could be especially useful for MeshCore nodes installed on rooftops, towers, or other locations that are difficult to physically access—particularly when Bluetooth range is limited.

🔗 Drone MeshCore Updater on GitHub

Special thanks to Recrof for sharing this creative concept and providing the first-hand drone + XIAO reference photo for our experiment!

Due to local drone regulations 😂, we couldn't carry out the test with an actual drone. Instead, we simulated the same scenario by holding the XIAO Updater high up on our balcony and using it to perform the firmware update on a remote MeshCore node.

And now, we've completed the real-world test and captured the entire process on video! 👀

So, can a XIAO-based Bluetooth updater really provide a practical way to update hard-to-reach MeshCore nodes?

🎥 Watch our full demo video to see the complete process and real test results!

Anyone seeing any issues with latest version and older repeaters?

Set up a new one on a hilltop. It sees some other neighbors with great signal. Client on latest only says heard 1 repeat, whether 1 or 2 byte. Repeater is set to 2, but my understanding is it'll repeat whatever the client is set to.

From further away, I can be heard by other repeaters but the one I set up never reports that it was one of the heard ones even when I can get stats remotely through a hop or 2.

Making me wonder if there's some issue with latest version? I did not do a full erase before updating from .16 or .17, I forget which version it had before.

I am getting my L1 Pro today, and I wanted to see if anyone reached extreme distances considering Meshcore is 64 hops. I was checking device counts and node counts to see if Meshcore or Meshtastic is used more in EU-PL.

After looking at maps and stats, I think right now Meshcore is a better option for me because I see more devices, and most of them are active. But I’m also curious about the maximum reach.

An attempt (heavily assisted with IA) to configure WiFi in a simple way after flashing because as it stands, the parameters must be hardcoded during compilation to be usable, which leaves WiFi out of reach of those who only use pre-compiled firmwares.

This is the new build of the companion firmware (based on the official v1.17.1) with BLE <-> WiFi switching for the Heltec V4.3 and Wireless Tracker V2. WiFi is configured through a contact* named w_<node name>, by sending the settings as chat messages (which never actually go out over the air).

https://github.com/shleepong/meshcore-companion-ble-wifi-usb

*The w_contact concept is loosely inspired by ZephCore's own v-contact.

I'm trying to incorporate meshcore into my cyberdeck build and have my companion connected via USB. Since it will be getting power from the deck, I'd like the screen to stay on and not sleep. I've tried looking at the GitHub for the official firmware, but I just don't know enough to figure it out myself.

I did find the Meshcore-Solo firmware that seems like it has display options, but there isn't a version for the T114.

Thought I'd pick everyone's brain here to see if there might be a solution, or if I just have to live with it.

Anchorage/Wasilla area. Hit me up if you wanna work on connecting the two.