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Meshtastic

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Meshtastic® is a project that lets you use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communicator for areas without reliable cellular service. These radios are great for hiking, skiing, paragliding - essentially any hobby where you don't have reliable internet access. Each member of the mesh can send and view text messages and enable optional GPS based location features.

The radios automatically create a mesh to forward packets to neighbors (up to 3 hops from origin). The radios will optionally work with your phone, but no phone is required. Puget Mesh is working to build a mesh in our region that anyone can connect to. The intention is for this off-grid network to be avaialable as an Emergency/Disaster response tool. One large advantage of Meshtastic over GMRS or Amateur radio services is that no license is required to use Meshtastic.

Joining

Are you interested in joining the mesh? You will need to purchase a LoRa radio from the Supported Hardware list. Outside of the mesh, we are most active on our public Discord Server.

MQTT and Maps

Dave Keogh Meshtastic Map Meshtastic devices can be connected to the internet and exchange information (messages, data, telemetry, etc) by using a MQTT server.

The vast majority of us have chosen not to use MQTT with meshtastic in the spirit of embracing the RF mesh itself. However, we do utilize our own MQTT server for exchanging position data which is plotted on a map. This is helpful for understanding where the mesh needs to grow, and is helpful for onboarding new users.

There are a few public maps available showing nodes (that choose to share their position) but we use https://meshtastic.davekeogh.com/.

  • Use the Layers menu in the top right to view Node types and Overlays.
  • Click on a Node for Node-specific information.

Weekly Net

Every Monday evening at 7pm we have our weekly net on the public default LongFast channel, on the default LONG_FAST freqency slot 20. Currently the following nodes are confirmed net control operators.

  • KK4GKF

Net Control Guide

At 7pm please send the following message:

##### Welcome to the Puget Mesh Net! #####
Every Monday at 7pm. Please check in with:
"Hello KK4GKF, this is <my_name> in <my_location>"
I will acknowledge all check-ins that I receive.

Respond to every check-in that you receive and include their name and location.

KK4GKF (Net Control) received check-in from <their_name> in <location>.

It may feel redundant to include names in the messages, but this ensures all parties have the node name available. Node lists typically only remember the 100 most recent node names and this is easy to exceed in high mesh-density areas.

At the end of the net, send your results to the meshtastic discord channel (list of who was heard, their location, your location).

Member Projects

We have a lot of talented folks in our area working on interesting Meshtastic projects. Here are a few:

SpudGunMan "Meshing Around"

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around "This feature-rich bot is designed to enhance your Meshtastic network experience with a variety of powerful tools and fun features, connectivity and utility through text-based message delivery. Whether you're looking to perform network tests, send messages, or even play games, mesh_bot.py has you covered."

afourney APRStastic

https://github.com/afourney/aprstastic "aprstastic is a bidirectional Meshtastic APRS gateway for Meshtastic users with amateur radio licenses. It runs on stock Meshtastic devices (LongFast, 915MHz, etc.), allowing you to participate and extend the public network, while using pre-registered associations between Meshtastic device IDs and amateur radio call signs to bidirectionally gate APRS packets in a way that is compliant with FCC regulations... "

Other Local Meshtastic Groups

A large list of Meshtastic groups can be found on Meshtastic.org