Meshtastic radio setup

The node talks to the mesh through a Meshtastic radio wired to it. The radio needs a few settings, and a LoRa region. Without a region, the radio never transmits.

Radio settings

Set these on the Meshtastic radio:

• Serial module on
• Mode TEXTMSG
• Baud 115200
• The pins for your board: 19 RX / 20 TX on a Heltec V3, or 10 RX / 9 TX on a T114
• A LoRa region

Soldered Core and Assembled radios ship with the serial settings done but no region.

Set it up

Use the Meshtastic app, or the script in the repository:

pip3 install 'meshtastic[cli]' pyserial
python3 scripts/meshtastic_config.py --serial on --region US

Encrypted channel

Make your own encrypted Meshtastic channel the primary one and turn off the public channel, so your commands and alerts are not open to everyone. Keep the radio's short name different from the node ID.

Other clients

Commands and alerts are ordinary Meshtastic text messages, so any client works, including ATAK and MQTT.

If the node never answers over the mesh

The most common cause is a missing LoRa region, which stops the radio transmitting. Confirm the region is set, the Serial module is on in TEXTMSG mode at 115200, and the RX/TX pins match your board. Make sure your radio is on the same channel as the node.