the mesh

No towers, no bill, no account

A LoRa mesh is a few dozen small radios that agree on a frequency and pass each other's messages along. There is no company in the middle. If the internet goes out, the mesh does not notice.

How a message gets there

You send. The pager encrypts it and transmits a short burst. Anything in earshot hears it — typically a few miles, much further from a ridge.

Repeaters rebroadcast. A repeater that hears something new passes it on once, adding itself to the path. Your pager shows you how many did.

It stops. Each rebroadcast decrements a hop limit, and every node remembers what it has already heard, so a message crosses the mesh instead of echoing around it forever.

The reply learns the way back. Once a route is known, later messages follow it directly rather than flooding, which is why a conversation gets faster after the first exchange.

What is on a mesh

Companions

The thing in your pocket. Sends and receives, shows the map, holds your contacts. A pager is one.

Repeaters

Usually solar, usually somewhere high and inconvenient. They carry everyone else's traffic and are the reason the mesh has reach at all.

Room servers

Hold recent messages so you can catch up after being away or out of range, instead of missing them.

Joining

Match the radio settings your local mesh uses and you are on it. Around the Inland Northwest that is 910.5250244 MHz, 62.5 kHz, SF7, CR 4/5, which is what this firmware ships with. Elsewhere, ask whoever runs your local mesh — the numbers have to match exactly or you will sit there hearing nothing.

Two things worth knowing early

Channels are only as private as their name

A channel key is derived from its name, so anyone who knows the name can read it. Direct messages are different: those are encrypted to the other person's key and nobody in between can read them.

Airtime is shared

Everyone is taking turns on one frequency. Frequent position beacons and chatty automation cost everybody range. Send what matters and the mesh stays useful for the people who need it.

This is unlicensed ISM band, not amateur radio — no callsign required, and equally, no licensed power levels. Keep to what your hardware and local rules allow.

Got a pager? It takes about two minutes to get on the air.

Open the installer