Setting the standard for MeshCore in Texas

This site serves to guide MeshCore users in Texas to suggested best-practice RF parameters and online mesh technical reporting settings.

Getting Started:

If you’re not aware of a mesh in your area, first check the official MeshCore Network Map , MeshMapper, and LetsMesh to see if one exists. Use whatever RF settings are already active in your area. If they are not the US Recommended preset, those who established the mesh may have chosen a different frequency for a legitimate system engineering purpose (e.g. to avoid interference).

We also recommend setting up multiple “Observer” nodes (particularly at the edges of your mesh network) to feed network information to internet mapping sites. These nodes can consist simply of an additional ESP-32 based device running special repeater firmware (available here) which enables WiFi and uploading received packets to (but never downloading from) MQTT servers. Observer nodes are ideally deployed as functional repeaters themselves, but the most common way to deploy them is to co-locate them near a repeater in receive-only mode (via the set repeat off console command) but in a location where WiFi is also available. Two reporting networks that are popular and easy to point an observer at include MeshMapper and Waev. We do not currently recommend relying on or feeding network data to LetsMesh (the default MQTT servers on the observer firmware) because of recent and ongoing reliability issues.

Meshcore Recommended RF/Protocol Settings:

(This uses the default US preset)

Caveats:

If you want to run Meshcore infrastructure nodes (repeaters) in close proximity to Meshtastic nodes, you may need to include cavity filters to isolate the two from interfering with one another. Do note that ceramic/saw filters do not provide enough isolation within the same band. Only notch filters (to notch out the other network’s frequency) or cavity filters with a very narrow pass-band are capable of doing this. Cavity filters are superior to notch filters for this application because they also will filter out cellular signals and most other ISM band traffic.

If you are deploying a repeater at a location where other sources of RF are likely to cause interference (pretty much any commercial/government tower site, urban areas with extreme levels of ISM band utilization, etc.), you will absolutely want to install filtering for your repeater. Depending on the exact circumstances, ceramic saw filters may be sufficient, but a good cavity filter will almost always be the best option from an engineering perspective.

A couple of known sources (not sponsored or affiliated) of good quality cavity filters include Broken Circuit Ranch (Texas-based) and Airframes (US-based).

DLU: 20 JUL 2026