YEGMESH
Placeholder Page for the Edmonton Meshtastic Community Group - YEGMESH
We'll get something thrown together sooner or later.
Placeholder Page for the Edmonton Meshtastic Community Group - YEGMESH
We'll get something thrown together sooner or later.
We have set up a number of routers and repeaters in and around Edmonton.
********* UPDATE December 2025 *********
Our core community is following the Calgary community and has adopted the new "Custom LongModTurbo" settings.
Navigate to Meshtastic App → Settings → LoRa and configure:
Use Preset = OFF
Bandwidth = 500
Spread Factor = 11
Coding Rate = 8
Frequency Override = 902.6875 MHz
The public channel is using the default Primary Channel 0 settings (Key: AQ==)
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These radios communicate on the 902.6875 MHZ frequency using the LoRa protocol. The radios mesh using the open-source Meshtastic software. Users can connect to these repeaters by using their own handheld nodes which will also act as repeaters. The messages hop from node to node, extending the reach of the network and ensuring everyone receives every message.
Pretend you're sitting in class and want to send a note to everyone in the class. You write your note on a piece of paper and copy it three times. The message can be up to 228 characters - about as long as this paragraph so far. You hand those three pieces of paper to the three people around you. Then those three people re-write the message three times and hand it to the three people around them and so on. Now imagine a big gust of wind comes and blows away some of the messages. If even just a few people saw the note and keep copying and re-sending it, eventually everyone will get a copy of the note. This is like sending an unencrypted message to everyone on the network.
Now imagine you want to send a message to a single person or a select group of people but you don't want other people who see the note to be able to read it. You could write the note using a secret language. You could then hand a decoder key to your friend or to a group of friends and they could decode the message. The message still gets passed the same way - with every single person writing the message a few times and handing it to everyone - but only those people with the decoder key will be able to understand the message. This is like sending an encrypted direct message or encrypted group message.
Austin Mesh works the same way as this paper example, but instead of sending paper notes we're using digital text messages and sending it with radio waves. Our radios are solar powered and they don’t need any internet or cell phone coverage. This means they will work even if the power is out.
Meshtastic is a bit like a decentralized social media platform or SMS text messaging. It has a number of different features which will be familiar to anyone who has sent a text message or posted on social media.
1) Primary Channel:You can broadcast an unencrypted message to the Primary Channel and everyone on your mesh will see it. This is a bit like “posting” publicly on a social media platform.
2) Group Channels:You can send an encrypted message to a select group of people on a Secondary Channel and everyone who is subscribed to that channel will get it. People can join the channel if you provide them with an encryption key which you can send to them via Direct Message or which they can scan from a QR code in person. This is a bit like a private group on social media, or a group text message chain on SMS.
3) Direct Messages:You can send encrypted direct messages to people on the mesh. This is like a private text message or a DM on social medial.
4) Location:If you choose to enable it you can send your location to the mesh and it will show up on everyone’s map in the app.
5) Connect Worldwide:If anyone on your local mesh is running an MQTT gateway your local mesh will connect to the other meshes around the world. This can allow you to broadcast messages to everyone globally or send encrypted messages to groups or individuals worldwide.
6) Telemetry Data:Nodes can be set up to send telemetry data like the battery status or signal strength, which is helpful for monitoring remote solar-powered nodes. Nodes can also have sensors connected to them which allow them to send data on temperature, humidity, or air pressure which allow them to act like weather stations.