@Edent not shocking. the repeaters are usually set to advertise with large gaps (I think 12 hours)
Put a ping out on the test channel (hashtag test) and check if "sent" changes to "heard 1 repeat". If so, one repeater heard you and you heard it repeat your message.
Try a couple of times if it didn't work immediately...
If not, try another position!
@Edent I've been exploring LoRa as well. Here's my writeup about experimenting with MeshCore for a few weeks: https://mtlynch.io/first-impressions-of-meshcore/
@michael thank you - that was useful and instructive.
Always a delight to be sent random circuit boards in the post 😄
Not sure I'll have enough time before #FOSDEM to set up a full #Meshtastic node, but I'll give it a go!
@Edent I'm glad the box wasn't summarily destroyed in transit for being too suspicious, and I hope you enjoy playing with it as much as we enjoyed making it.
The Femtofox team was strongly influenced by the loss of mobile phone towers in the Northern California wildfires. I still have a dream of solar powered linux nodes as part of a healthy mesh.
The reality is that it's just really really cool to play with.
Well, thanks to WebUSB I was able to flash this tiny board with MeshCore. It connects fine to my phone, but I can't see any other nodes.
The hunt continues!
OK my #Meshcore friends, what am I doing wrong?
Board is on the 3rd floor (over 6m above ground height.
Powered on, connected via Bluetooth, by a window.
Set to UK long range.
Been up for about 30 minutes and hasn't discovered any neighbours.
I know there are a couple of repeaters near-ish.
Just a case of wait and hope? Stick it in the loft? Increase power?
Any help and speculation welcomed 😄
@Edent this doesn't help but I assumed Northampton wouldn't have any #meshtastic traffic and now I'm interested 😀
Aha! I had to unbend the antenna 😁
Now receiving #Meshcore messages. Don't know if any of mine are being seen though.
@Edent oh, antennas and antenna placement can be very weird to understand and to debug. in general it's better to not have your whip antenna near to a big piece of metal because it will couple with it and throw everything off.
recommendation: take a photograph, measure for a day, move something around, take another photograph, do another day's measurements, repeat.
If you can get the antenna outside rather than inside it will make a difference, but that's not always easy
@Edent I haven't seen your messages (get to Bristol).
When you send a message do you see any repeats? Under your blue message bubble it may say something like “Heard 1 repeat”. If it just says "Sent" then it is possible no one heard you.
You may be able to hear things without anyone hearing you.
@dan not seeing any repeats so, yeah, I expect I'm on read only at the moment 😃
@grutzifix ok. Where do you suggest I put it? Not sure how waterproof it is 🤣
@Edent UK/EU Narrow. The default is wrong 
@M0YNG cheers. Have switched over. Nothing discovered yet.
@Edent not shocking. the repeaters are usually set to advertise with large gaps (I think 12 hours)
Put a ping out on the test channel (hashtag test) and check if "sent" changes to "heard 1 repeat". If so, one repeater heard you and you heard it repeat your message.
Try a couple of times if it didn't work immediately...
If not, try another position!
@Edent Before I dropped off, a large part of the UK moved to UK Narrow, so might be worth switching over
@Edent I had a board like that that didn't work at all, so perhaps quality is low. However, how far away are the repeaters and do you probably have a line of sight?
Also stick the antenna on the outside of the window for a while perhaps you have some foil in the glass. But first waiting a few hours is recommended
@Edent For Meshcore in the UK you need to change your radio settings:
Frequency: 869.618
Bandwidth: 62.5
Spreading Factor: 8
Coding Rate: 8
Transmit Power: 22
@edronik @thechaoszone I'll give it a go. Ta!
@dpecos @zipkid woo! I'll try to find you. My Signal and other contact details are on https://edent.tel/
@Edent which one did you get? I might forestall all thinking and simply copy what you're doing ;)
@Edent whichever one is prevalent around you. There could even be both. MeshCore is well suited for wide-area mesh networking. Meshtastic is more intended for personal ad hoc meshes, like when hiking, but it can be configured to work well in an infrastructure-based mesh. You can mostly reflash between the two so there’s little difficulty in playing with both. Each project has a Discord with local threads, and many areas have their own very substantial communities.
I did a talk for the U of Michigan Amateur Radio Club on #meshtastic and the slides are on the WE8CHZ "MiRATS" site here
https://www.we8chz.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Intro-to-Meshtastic-W8EMV.pdf
The fun you have with any mesh depends on the number of other people using the same tech locally.
Too few - frustration, talking to yourself
Acceptable -interesting local net with reliable paths
Too many - mesh network overload due to congestion
For actual emergency comms? Depends. Severe weather nets run on 2 meter / 70 cm ham repeaters.
@Edent my understanding is that meshtastic is older and possibly in more widespread use, but meshcore can probably do more?
I've used meshtastic a lot and found it to be servicible in my rural community. I am interested exploring meshcore, but chickens and eggs have to come first.
@Edent this is the best talk on Meshtastic I found
https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-hacker-s-guide-to-meshtastic-off-grid-encrypted-lora-meshnets-for-cheap
Meshtastic very active in my area.
@Edent I prefer Meshtastic, but my local mesh switched to Meshcore. MC is not as good. It doesn't do as much. If you turn on a new node, it takes days to populated with the mesh nodes and half of them are unreliable links. I wasn't involved in the vote to switch.
Meshtastic has sensor integration and some simple stuff to get started. It's useful for IoT stuff. It quickly finds local nodes even factory fresh.
Both apps are quirky. Only one of them is open source.
@Edent
I saw a conférence about Reticulum (at CCC IIRC) and it looked very interesting, I don't know a lot about mesh so I have no adive but I would compare it to meshmatic
@Edent I'm on #meshcore because that looks to be more active in my area. (Netherlands)
I sarted with 25 euro investment for a helltec v3 (3.2 iirc) and I learned a ton about wireless signals already. I am planning to build a repeater to get the network more stable and put that out on the balcony where I live.
I'm having fun but it's still very new. It feels like proper emergency comms are still with the hams, but then I need to get a license.
Highly subjective takes, all of this. 😊Learning
@Edent I don't know if Benn Jordan has a presence on Mastodon, but I'm sure he'd have something to say on the subject. ..
@Edent I'd love to understand this too.
@Edent I've attended this seession a few days ago: https://techwerkers.nl/en/events/2026-01-15/
It was recorded.
They recommend MeshCore over Meshtastic.
@pini thank you - that's useful.
@Edent I suspect that @alistairmacdonald may know a thing or two 😃
@Edent from my (limited) experience, Meshtastic is better for telemetry-sending, and messaging is a side effect that people have grabbed hold of. As a result short-range comms work well. Meshcore is designed to be more of a message relaying system. Meshcore also has much longer range because of the relays. The cluster I participate in reaches from Hull to Isle of Wight.
@Edent Neither are actually open source, I used Meshtastic for a year. Great for cities / festivals / mucking around.
Been using meshcore the last year or so.
Meshcore is MUCH more reliable for permanent setups, and usable for long range. We have like 200 meshcore nodes covering our whole state. Regularly messaging people hundreds of km away 12-14 hops.
This would be impossible on Meshtastic.
@Edent I would go with meshtastic because of the bigger reach in terms of community. Meshcore has cool functions, but it's not that big yet. BUT! Since they devices are pretty cheap, especially if ordered bare from china, why not both?
@Edent I'm much in the same boat with similar intentions so no real world experience yet.
I've got my eye on a couple of Heltec v4 devboards. v4 because they support gnss which is interesting for a few 'fun' use cases I have with friends and while it seems Meshcore is the way to go in NL as its more widely used, I understand incan switch to meshtastic pretty easily using same hardware.
Heltec appear to have decent shipping methods from their own site but I've seen similar if not exactly the same ones on usual suspect large online retail shopfronts.
@Edent I've so far stuck to meshtastic because it seems more, well, meshy. My use case doesn't include joining a wider local mesh so it's exactly what I need.
If you're usecase is joining a wider local mesh then you have to go with the (local) crowd, which you'll probably need a non-mesh network to find out about. Probably Facebook but who knows!
I'm currently using Sensecap and RAK card devices which work pretty well.
#meshtastic or #meshcore - how to find out what the others around you are using?
The lazy way: Compare https://map.meshcore.dev/ (meshcore) with https://meshmap.net/ (meshtastic).
And the obvious brute force idea would probably also work: Get a device, flash one of the two, try it out for a week, flash the other, try that out for a week.
(Have not flashed my own shiny new device yet for either. Intend to start with meshcore.)
@UrbanCityCowboy what do you like about Reticulum?
@Edent MC is good for a pretty much static infrastructure if you have reliable and stable repeaters and want to reach long distances. MT is better for ad-hoc networks for a limited area (a town or an event for example) where you can't rely on semi-permanent repeaters.
@Edent Keep in mind that many hardware devices could run #meshcore as well as #meshtastic. So you could try one mesh and still switch if you revise your decision.
@Edent This is nice example of situation where I'd like to have out-of-band comms: https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1qd2z97/mestastic_on_family_cruise_worked_great_for/
@Edent Of course there are technical details that could be considered when chosing between #meshcore and #meshtastic. My opinion is: If you want to communicate or use it for emergency, check what the majority in your area is using.
Even if you chose the best technology, its not much worth if you're the only one 😀
@Edent @vaurora posted something good recently, apologies if you've already seen https://mstdn.social/@vaurora/115904345026660329
(and appears to be giving a talk, hope that one makes it online at some point https://mstdn.social/@vaurora/115915322997911336 )
@Edent my experience from the Berlin mesh. the berlin meshtastic network is overcrowded with badly positioned devices and the routing algorithm essentially passes messages into sinkholes. Reschability snd reliability are bad not despite but because of the many devices. Default forwarding off and limiting it to tower/rooftop locations would probably be better than every device meshing. 1/2
@Edent Someone more experienced than me will corroborate or correct me, I'm sure, but I also heard that Meshtastic also only sends and receives signals in one direction rather than 360° like Meshcore and radio.
@Edent For me it has been Meshtastic. I am not building city wide infrastructure. I need close proximity communication with self forming. And meshcore is not fully open.
@resiliencetheatre ha! I've just had someone say go with MeshCore because Meshtastic isn't fully open 😆
@Edent I believe firmware is GPLv3 for Meshtastic. Tricky topic agree, but some features were paid only on Meshcore?
@Edent I've been looking recently too, and found it confusing.
I wanted a device I could leave in my loft and control with a phone, but also take around to (hopefully) EMFCamp.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0F1CYWVLC?psc=1
I'm planning on getting this pair to split with my dad who lives a few miles away and see how it goes.
I found meshmap.net useful for seeing what was nearby.
@Edent In the UK I went with MeshCore as the network is busier and has more chatter. Mesttastic feels a bit dead (in my area).
I would hesitate to consider it for emergency use. I guess if there is nothing else, but it feels like there are other alternatives (e.g. just using a basic radio for voice) that would be better.
It is fun though.
@dan ta! Mind if I ask what kit you're using?
@Edent @dan I use Meshcore in The Netherlands because it’s a much more community and network, I started with two Heltec v3’s that are USB powered and affordable, as most nodes they support both MT and MC. One is a repeater the other a companion, later I added an additional companion that is battery powered and mobile (Sensecap T1000-E). Initially I didn’t get much response on either, so I added a large external antenna.
@Edent In the loft running as a relay:
Heltec V3 from Amazon
Case from Etsy that looks 3D printed
Antenna from ThePiHut (https://thepihut.com/products/lora-antenna-with-pigtail-868mhz-black)
Powered using PoE over ethernet plugged into a PoE to USB-C splitter. No networking over the ethernet, just a way to get power into the loft.
Client device is a T1000-E (https://thepihut.com/products/sensecap-card-tracker-t1000-e-for-meshtastic) connected over bluetooth to my iPhone.
The firmware running on the relay is super stable. The T1000-E firmware is not as stable and I often have to reboot it every 2 or so days.
@Edent Meshcore.
It actually works;
It is actually open, does not belong to branding fanatics.
@krahabors thanks. Any particular device you recommend?
@Edent I do not have anything new or fancy, I'm sure there will be better recommendations.
@krahabors I'm not interested in new or fancy. I just like tried and tested.
@Edent DIY combination of nrf52840 with sx1262, usually called faketec, is good enough for me. Even without common PCB, wired dead-bug style:)
There are factory made versions of that combination now and a lot of newer, probably better options.
@Edent @krahabors you have devices aimed at running of grid as a repeater. Then you need a low power device. heltec t114
If you have a device on constant USB power, or battery that should last a day heltecv3 or v4 are fine.
@Edent meshcore -> better for highly congested city centres. Meshtastic -> better for long range rural
@boxly which one do you use?
@Edent I mainly use meshtastic, I'm out in the countryside so being able to bounce off more repeaters is beneficial. The good thing is though that most hardware will run both, you can refresh via usb webserial in seconds. I'm building a meshtastic hexpansion for EMF this year too hopefully!
@boxly I'd be very interested in chatting at EMF 🙂
