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Frequently Asked Questions

Here are a couple of questions we have frequently been asked.

Should I install a relay?

Yes. Even if you don't think you reach other nodes, you might be surprised and do.

Even if you do set up a relay and you don't see neighbours, it's still useful to experiment with this technology locally. And besides, this is how a mesh start: with one node, and then a second...

What should I buy?

It depends! In general, follow the guide, which has devices we have actually tested.

When in doubt, and starting, get a cheap one (e.g. HELTEC v4) and experiment.

If you want to put something on your roof or outside, consider a self-contained solar node instead of running power all the way out there.

See also our full hardware guide.

Do I need something on my roof?

No. Plenty of people are running relays from their homes, living rooms, attics, and even cars or backpacks.

But yes, if you do have access to a more elevated structure like a roof, tree or mast, it will reach farther.

How far can I communicate?

As far as the eye can see.

The current Meshtastic record is 330km over the Adriatic sea and LoRa has been recorded as reaching 1336km over the ocean, thanks to tropospheric conditions.

More practically, you can still expect to reach stations a couple of kilometers or more, even from inside your house. A node on a rooftop can reach much further, easily a dozen kilometers, depending on how clear the view is.

How many nodes in the network?

Hard to tell. The maps seem to show somewhere between 20 and 40 nodes on any given day, but we don't have good metrics of this.

As of 2026-03-09, "from my house", I see about 10 to 20 relays on a daily basis, with perhaps half a dozen direct contacts.

There are daily messages.

Yes. Meshtastic -- or more specifically LoRa -- transmits over ISM radio bands, specifically centered around 915MHz.

Technically, the LoRa protocol itself is patented by the Semtech corportation, so there is a non-free aspect to this. It is, in any case, perfectly legal to use LoRa devices as a end-user, but this means that someone might not have the right to reimplement the LoRa protocol on its own hardware, for example.

Are my messages secret?

It depends.

First off, communications on the main "shared" channel ("LongFast") are encrypted, but with a pre-defined, shared key. So conversations there are definitely not secret and should be treated as a public billboard.

Second, Meshtastic is encrypted but lack other key features like authentication, integrity and perfect-forward secrecy. Only the message contents are encrypted too, not the routing headers.

This means that you essentially get some secrecy; a neighbour might not be able to tell what you are talking about in some other secret channel you have setup, but they will be able to:

  • see which nodes you are talking to
  • replay a message
  • pretend they are someone else in your private group if they have access to the secret key
  • record your messages and decrypt them later if they get access to your private key

This sounds minor, but those are significant threats as, for example, if someone knows you wrote "hi" to a channel, even if they don't have the encryption key, they can replay that "hi" by sending the exact same encrypted packet.

Security is hard. Projects like Reticulum handle this better.

Physical access to the devices also likely leads to full compromise as devices can generally be put in "DFU" (Device firmware upgrade) mode relatively easily. Treat encryption keys from a physically compromised device to be equally compromised.

Why not Reticulum?

We are experimenting with Reticulum. Some of us have worked on Debian packaging, microReticulum (to run Reticulum natively on chip without a second computer), transport nodes (same, as a gateway to the Internet), Reticulum-over-Meshtastic, and more!

But Reticulum, while being more advanced in terms of routing and cryptography, lacks the "ready-made" aspect of Meshtastatic. You can, today, buy a hardware pre-installed with Meshtastic and it just works, without anything else. Reticulum is just not there yet. Reticulum has also switched to a in-house, non-free license in April 2025 and ultimately become "private source", where the GitHub repository is a "public mirror" but development "happens elsewhere".

Right now the focus is on organizing the mesh that already exists on the island, and that is mostly made up of Meshtastic nodes. Reticulum could be a backhaul for the network or the future of the network, we'll see!

Why not Meshcore?

We're also considering Meshcore! Many mesh projects including Puget mesh and Boston have started experimenting with it.

Right now, they main reason we're not using Meshcore is similar to Reticulum: the devices and critical mass is on Meshtastic. Meshcore brings interesting scalability properties to the table, but it's unclear what improvements it brings to the table in terms of security.

Furthermore, while some of the Meshcore firmware is free, there are no official free software apps and the T-Deck firmware is proprietary. There are a number of third-party applications, including an open app but Meshcore is generally not as well integrated as Meshtastic.

We'll scale the mesh when we get there.

Why LongFast?

We currently stay close to the default Meshtastic settings, which includes 3 hops limits and the LongFast default. For now, we are not saturating.

When the time comes, we will need to change those defaults, as others have done in Tenessee (USA), Puget Mesh (USA) the bay area (USA) and Wellington (NZ), see the official blog post for a conversation about this.

My question is not here

That is not a question, but ask us, contact us!