Meshtastic // Pirkanmaa
Etiquette
The mesh is shared airtime. A handful of settings decide whether it stays fast or grinds.
None of this is enforced and none of it is a rule. It is what the people already on the mesh have found works. If you disagree, say so on the channels — most of these came out of exactly that kind of argument.
Hop limit
A hop limit above 4 makes your messages less likely to arrive, not more. That sounds backwards, so here is why.
Every extra hop multiplies the number of nodes that will rebroadcast your message. The local mesh is around ninety nodes; set the limit above 4 and a large share of them may end up repeating you. The message circulates, collides with other traffic, and the collisions take out other people's messages as well as your own.
Use
Hop limit 3 if you are near a well-connected node. 4 if you need one extra hop to reach one. Higher than that degrades the network for everyone, including you.
Broadcast intervals
Set nodeinfo and position broadcasts to 6 hours or more on fixed nodes. A node bolted to a balcony is not going anywhere, and announcing that fact every fifteen minutes is pure overhead.
If the device has GPS, check that smart position settings are on and the minimum update rate is 6 hours, so it is not chattering about a position that has not changed.
On a node that never moves, GPS is worth turning off altogether. It costs power and airtime to tell the mesh something it already knows.
| Nodeinfo broadcast | 21600 s | 6 hours |
|---|---|---|
| Position broadcast | 21600 s | 6 hours |
| Telemetry interval | 21600 s | 6 hours |
| Position precision | 20 | roughly 38 m — see below |
Position precision
Position precision controls how exactly your location is broadcast. Setting it to 20 publishes your node to about 38 metres, which is plenty for a coverage map and does not put your front door on the internet. Anything you broadcast is public.
Device roles
The role setting decides whether your node relays for other people. Most nodes should not.
| Client Mute | default choice | Indoors, on a desk, in a drawer. Behaves like Client but does not rebroadcast. Pick this unless you have a reason not to. |
|---|---|---|
| Client | if you help | Outside, on a balcony, somewhere with a view. Your node relays and genuinely extends coverage. |
| Router / Repeater | ask first | Only with a good reason and a conversation with the community. A badly placed router hurts more than it helps. |
The Meshtastic project has written this up in more detail in choosing the right device role, which is worth reading before you change anything.
Why any of this matters
LoRa is slow. At our settings a single message occupies the channel for a noticeable fraction of a second, and while it is transmitting nobody else can be heard. There is no collision detection and no retry coordination — two nodes talking at once simply destroy each other's packets.
So the capacity of the mesh is not "how many nodes are there", it is "how much airtime is left". Every unnecessary rebroadcast, every position update from a node that has not moved, every extra hop, spends some of it.
None of this means you should not use the mesh. Talk on it — that is the entire point. It just means the defaults were written for a network smaller than ours.