Why do we need a MeshCore network?
While there are other methods of communications when emergencies hit, most aren’t available to the general public without training and a license. A MeshCore network is a community driven and supported network that is used for secure individual or group chat communications when standard communications are down.
For many or us using MeshCore, it’s a preferred communication method for secure and stable communication once the network is established in an area.
So, why don’t we just use Meshtastic since it’s been around longer?
The short answer is, it doesn’t scale well. It works great for small groups of people, but as more folks are added, the network gets overwhelmed and can’t keep up with the traffic. MeshCore handles larger amounts of traffic better due to how it handles the communications. There are plenty of youtube videos and articles that compare MeshCore and Meshtastic.
How much coverage does Lexington currently have?
MeshCore relies on repeaters for coverage and We’re still ramping up. so if you get involved now, we ask that you BYOR (Bring Your Own Repeater), so you can help grow the infrastructure, it’s not hard, nor very expensive and we are happy to help get you started if you need some help.
If you’d rather not setup a repeater, that’s fine too. The network will expand over time. Here’s where we currently have repeaters in the area, not all are able to talk to each other yet, and we have plans to add more so we can get communications established from Man-O-War to Downtown Lexington via a couple of routes. Currently H, E, F are able to see each other, therefore, folks surrounding those areas are able to chat.
Our short term goal is to get a connection from B to downtown and C to downtown, then continue on from there.
What network settings is Lexington using?
Lexington us using the standard US settings:
Frequency: 910.525MHz
Bandwidth: 62.5kHz
Spreading Factor (SF): 7
Coding Rate (CR): 5 (however, you can set to 8 for a bit more stability. This is slower and will be less of an issue as more repeaters get added).