MSP Mesh Settings

The MSP Mesh network functions with the following settings:

  • “Medium Range – Fast” LoRa preset (The default “Long Range – Fast” preset will not be able to communicate with nodes using the new mesh settings)
  • Channel slot 45 (913.125mhz)
    • You may need to manually enter “45” into the Channel Slot configuration input. If you never discover any nodes, try this.
  • Device Mode: either “Client” or “Client Mute”
    • Please check out our Roles Guide if you intend to use any other Device Mode setting than Client or Client Mute.
    • TLDR version: Client Mute if your node spends most of its time indoors, in a pocket, wallet, bag, etc. Client if your device’s antenna spends most of its time outdoors, above ground level.
  • Node Broadcast Interval: 3 hours (or more)
  • Hops (guidelines)
    • If you are within or near the 694/494 metro loop we recommend 4 or 5 hops.
    • If you are in the second or third ring suburbs or rather far outside the 696/494 loop, try 6 or 7 hops.
    • Keep in mind that hops can be configured depending on where you are. If you live in a very well-covered area, you can probably get away with 3 hops and your messages will make it through the entire mesh.
  • Telemetry settings:
    • Device Metrics: 1-3 hours
    • Environment Metrics: 1-3 hours
    • Power metrics (if applicable): 1-3 hours
  • Channel settings:
    • Your FIRST channel (also known as the Primary Channel, in the “0” slot) should remain as your first channel even if you don’t plan to use it much. The primary channel is how devices share telemetry with the rest of the mesh.
      • The Key for the primary channel should be ‘AQ==‘
      • If you are using the iOS client the channel may appear to be simply named “Primary Channel”. That is fine.
      • If you are using the Android client the channel will need to be named “MediumFast” to properly function.
      • If you have ever re-named your Primary Channel, you may want to go to your LoRa settings screen and make sure that the Frequency Slot value is set specifically to “45”.  If it is a zero (0) your frequency may not be the same as the mesh, and you will not be able to communicate with other nodes that are on the main MSP Mesh.
    • Any other messaging channels you would like to add can be configured at your leisure, they just must be Secondary Channels.
  • Position/Location: Leave as default or configure at your leisure, but we recommend Smart Position be enabled for battery life reasons.

Why not the default settings?

Due to the very large amount of nodes on the MSP Mesh network (currently at least 500, but likely many more) the default settings that come pre-configured with all Meshtastic devices cause too much airtime congestion.

With so many nodes, even without anyone actually chatting with each other, that many devices constantly announcing themselves and sharing their network stats and info with each other (known as “telemetry” packets) causes our network of strategically-placed router nodes to no longer be able to do their job, which is to route mesh traffic between them, and hand it off when it’s near the right place.

By changing to a shorter “chirp” preset (Medium Fast, in this case) the actual time spent on each of these broadcasts is significantly shorter, and frees up more of the frequency to be used at any given time.

How many hops now?

Since the early origins of the MSP Mesh, hop count needed to be set quite high for the mesh to function and for troubleshooting purposes — usually the maximum value of 7 was used. This has changed with the addition of several well-placed router nodes and many community members installing neighborhood/area coverage nodes to help improve performance.

Having too many 7-hop nodes eventually leads to bandwidth congestion — everything that a node regularly sends out (telemetry data, mostly) is repeated all over the mesh at least 7 times, which as you can imagine eats up a lot of available airtime as more and more nodes are doing the same thing.

Check the Hops settings guidelines on this page to see what you should try for yours. If it just doesn’t want to work with the lower numbers, experiment until it performs to expectation. Keep in mind that if you are sending messages (chat or DM’s) the further it has to go, the more likely it is to need more hops.

Handy Hours to Seconds chart:

1 hour = 3600 seconds
3 hours = 10800 seconds
12 hours = 43200 seconds
24 hours = 86400 seconds