Central Maryland
BWI Mesh
MeshCore is open firmware for small LoRa radios. A companion sits with you and talks to the phone app. A repeater sits high and relays traffic so the next neighborhood can hear you. Nodes only find each other if they share the same radio settings. This page is the local recipe for the Baltimore–Washington corridor.
See who is on the air on MeshCore map and BWI MeshMapper . Flash firmware at flasher.meshcore.io. Configure a repeater over USB at config.meshcore.io.
Companion
Flash the BLE Companion role, then pair it with the MeshCore app. Give it a name people will recognize on the mesh. Location is optional on a handheld.
| Name | A short description, not a callsign if you do not want one |
|---|---|
| Location | Optional |
| Preset | USA/Canada (Recommended) |
| Frequency | 910.525 MHz |
| Bandwidth | 62.5 kHz |
| Spreading factor | 7 |
| Coding rate | 5 |
Do not hand-tune frequency, bandwidth, or spreading factor. After the radio is on the air, set these in the app:
- Contact Settings → Auto Add All: on
- Contact Settings → Overwrite Oldest: on
- Notifications: your preference
- Experimental → Default Hash Size → migrate to 2-byte
- Export Config → Select All → save a backup
Repeater
Flash the Repeater role and put the node as high as you reasonably can. Set a name and a real lat,lon so it shows on the map. Set an admin password and leave guest empty. Some boards can take later firmware over the air; that is optional.
| Name | A short description of the site |
|---|---|
| Location | Latitude, longitude |
| Admin password | Set one. You will need it from a companion. |
| Guest password | Leave empty |
| Preset | USA/Canada (Recommended) |
| Frequency | 910.525 MHz |
| Bandwidth | 62.5 kHz |
| Spreading factor | 7 |
| Coding rate | 5 |
| Zero-hop adverts | 180 minutes |
| Flood adverts | 47 hours |
Leave coding rate at 5. Raise it toward 8 only if links are weak and you need extra error correction. The preset will then read Custom. That is expected.
When the repeater is configured, connect from your companion and confirm you can manage it remotely. Then run these commands. path.hash.mode 1 is the 2-byte hash this mesh uses.
set timezone America/New_York
set path.hash.mode 1
rebootReconnect after the reboot, then:
clock sync
get path.hash.mode
advertget path.hash.mode should return 1. More CLI options are in the MeshCore CLI docs.