MeshCore
MeshCore
As we gather more tips, we'll reformat this page to be more cogent.
Documentation
- The official FAQ is very informative
- A good overview of room servers and MeshCore in general.
- Observer Nodes feed the analysis sites
Community
- Bay Area Discord Server has a lot of good dialog and help
Live Analysis
- Analyzer 00id Map of Nodes and other things.
- Analyzer LetsMesh Another map of nodes and other things
- Baus Meshmapper San Francisco Bay Area
Misc Info
Hardware
For a G2, transmit power of 10 = 1 watt
Repeaters
- You used to worry about using the same key prefix of someone near you. You would admin via your companion to set an unused prefix. Prefix Utilization grid.
- As of 1.14 multi-byte path support makes this unnecessary. Instead, use any two digit prefix you want to generate your repeater's keys. Connect to your repeater and set path.hash.mode 1
- However, until all the repeaters and companions are on 1.14+ the old ones will still degrade to a single byte path. So, while the transition happens you would be a nice person to try and pick a less used prefix.
- set advert.interval 240
- set prv.key <key>
- set owner.info <info>
- Paths both ways get cached and if a route is bad you might get a message to the destination but the ack may not get back. If you have a repeater you own in the path force a flood by hard pressing the logon button. The path back might still be wrong so go to the console and send “reboot” 3 times … you don’t need a confirmation just spam it 3 times
About Two Byte Routing
Version 1.14.0 introduced two byte routing. In this scheme repeaters identify themselves with two bytes instead of one. This steals a byte from the overall routing path, so hops are limited to 32; in most situations that is not a problem.
With one byte routing a big network will have repeaters with duplicate ids. This makes offline analysis of the mesh very difficult. It can also lead to a bit higher mesh utilization because a router that shares an id with a router in the path will also repeat the message, but that is a marginal improvement. see the FAQ
If your companion is set for two byte routing and the message hits a repeater that is not up on 1.14 then that repeater will not forward your message. Once your area's repeaters are up on 1.14 then you can move your companion to multibyte.
Companion
- Hold down on a message and find the "heard repeats" button, it will give you more info what repeaters it hit
- Seems a lot of folks turn off auto-add contacts and just add devices out of the discovery tab manually. Some leave on auto add Repeaters so that they will show up in the application map.
Are you connecting to the mesh?
- Receiving: Tools > Rx Log will show messages coming to you.
- Transmitting: To see if you make it to the mesh, add the #test channel. Post a message and look for the number of repeaters. Also try posting !path and look for a pathbot to reply.
Traceroute
- Only works to repeaters.
- Tools > Trace Path - Using Map Select repeaters by tapping on them. Your companion has to hear from the last one in the path so you might tap on the same nodes to make the path go out and back.
Remotely connect to a repeater: Tap the repeater in your contacts list. Long press the connect button and select Flood.
Staleness
Staleness is based on last heard — the most recent time any traffic was seen from that node (not just adverts).
Thresholds:
| Role | Goes "stale" after |
|---|---|
| Repeater | 72 hours |
| Room Server | 72 hours |
| Companion | 24 hours |
| Sensor | 24 hours |
Visual cues:
- Nodes list: green dot → white dot, label changes from "Active" to "Stale"
- Static map: full color → grayed out (70% opacity + grayscale)
- Live map: full color → heavily dimmed (opacity 0.25)
Repeaters advertise every 12-24h, so 72h allows several missed cycles before flagging. Companions/sensors get 24h since they go quiet more often by design.
War Driving
Download the MeshMapper app on your phone. Make sure your radio has joined #wardriving unless you want repeater discovery only.
Unexplained Things
- All contacts not in contacts list.
- With a Heltec V4 on 1.14.0 and iOS app. I see 146 contacts in my Contacts list. When I go to Discover Contacts I see 270 contacts; the ones not in my contact list have an "add" button. In Settings > Contacts I have set to Add All and Overwrite Oldest. Why aren't all the contacts in my Contacts list?
Open Questions
- Ping Warning
- You know 2 repeaters or room servers with prefix <61>. Unfortunately we won't know which of them replies to this ping request. Dismiss/Confirm.
- What exactly does this mean to me as a Companion node?
