Meshtastic

784 readers

14 users here now

A community to discuss Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction)

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Channels other than LongFast? (self.meshtastic)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by avidamoeba to c/[email protected]

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just started using this so I know very little.

From what I gather, there's a default channel called "LongFast" which every device has from the start. I can see some messages in "LongFast" where I am.

I can see I can create another channel and share it via link, QR, etc.

Do people make such channels and share them publicly, for say local or topical chat groups? E.g. "Canada", or "Meshtastic Support", "BurningTesla", or "Cats"? Is this a thing? Can it be a things?

When I check local groups info, I see links to online comms like Telegram (ew), Discord, Matrix, etc. I don't see Meshtastic channel links.

top 12 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Each channel also has a pre-shared key (even the default LongFast one). Most community groups only share their channel info once you've joined or otherwise been vetted; they typically don't post those details for everyone to see.

If you keep the default longFast as your primary channel, be aware that your location is shared over the primary channel, so you're sharing it with everyone.

On my mesh, my primary channel uses a custom name and PSK so that only members can use it / see my location.

Because I also wanted to be able to relay for and interact with the "public" / default channel, I created a secondary channel named LongFast. For that to work, I had to also modify my LoRa settings to use the default frequency slot for my region (20, in my case, which is 906.875 MHz).

[–] avidamoeba 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who's in your private channel?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm still setting up my mesh, so just me and a friend at the moment lol.

Once I get everything planned, the goal is to start a community mesh project for this area.

[–] avidamoeba 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So something like "Local Community Mesh" with local people in it. How would you share the channel with new people who get a Meshtastic device?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I definitely wouldn't force people to join a Discord channel, that's for sure.

Forget exactly which community mesh page I was looking at, but basically you create an account on their website, the admin verifies you're not spam, and then a section becomes available to you that has the mesh channel config info. The community mesh page would also get listed on the Meshtastic Local Groups list.

So I would setup a website for it, create a registration/membership system, and put the channel info in the "Members Only" section of the site.

Edit: Ah, yeah: Dayton Mesh

Configuring your Meshtastic Device for the Dayton Mesh

In order to access the Dayton Mesh channel information, you may become a member by Creating an Account. Once you are signed in, a new link will appear called Channel Settings. There is no cost, and we do not collect personal information aside from your email . The reason we have decided to go this route for membership is twofold. Primarily, this allows us to protect channel information from scraping while still having all information in one location. Secondarily, we may add user-centric features in the future such as self-reported node locations, member-only event information, user-submitted blog posts about builds, etc. As such, having a membership system from the beginning allows us to more easily implement such features in the future. We use Amazon Cognito for user management.

[–] avidamoeba 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Would you create a public channel that doesn't need vetting, posting its info publicly somewhere?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Would I personally? No. If you're posting the pre-shared key publicly, then might as well just use the default one.

[–] avidamoeba 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

What about topical channels if the mesh grows large, to hundreds or thousands of people? E.g. ask support questions in "Local Support" instead of "LongFast"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I do have my private channels named (with the exception of a single secondary channel called LongFast to be able to interact with the "default"/public mesh), but you can only have 7 (or is it 8?) channels per device; that's a hard limit of the firmware/protocol.

From what I've read, I think there's also an upper limit of around a hundred nodes per mesh.

[–] avidamoeba 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Interesting. I guess it's a self-limiting problem. In effect LongFast would be limited by the number of nodes in your vicinity. Even in a large network, messages propagate to 3 hops so you won't be able to see messages from further away, even if the mesh has thousands more nodes further away.

This mesh doesn't seem to have 100-node limit. It seems to be a device limit where a device can only remember up to 100 nodes and it seems to be removing old ones as it discovers new ones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Ah, maybe that's the 100 node limit I was thinking of. I'm still relatively new to this myself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The largest limitation with a lot of nodes is channel congestion. Despite the name, LongFast is still pretty slow. The more nodes you have the longer channels stay active when a message is sent. Not to mention all the telemetry packets being sent about.

My local area is nowhere near populated enough to cause an issue, but I've seen many recommendations that switching to ShortFast is the way to go when you have enough node density. It's around 10x faster so it can handle more traffic. While range is smaller the higher number of nodes in your area would help offset the drawbacks.

The issue then is you're no longer on the default setting of all factory meshtastic devices so no one visiting your area would be able to see your mesh. The only way around this I know of is if you're putting key locations on the mqtt meshmap where it shows your device's default channel. Or a smaller mesh still running LongFast that periodically broadcasts something like "This area runs ShortFast, come join us!"