Swiss MeshCore Settings
These are the currently recommended settings to use with any MeshCore nodes in Switzerland. Nothing of this is mandatory, we just believe that this will result in the best performing mesh network and hope that it helps getting a solid experience with MeshCore right from the start.
Every user is responsible himself for his nodes and needs to make sure he is in full compliance with the legal restrictions and compliance given by the Swiss state and specifically the BAKOM.
We have switched over to a LoRa configuration which is sumarised / named "Narrow".
Name
Set it to whatever you want, just don't do anything insulting and be nice.
Frequency
869.618 MHz - We are using the same frequency as pretty much the rest of Europe and the UK.
Bandwidth
62.5kHz - This is the default setting for pretty much all of Europe and the UK.
Spreading Factor
8 - This is the default setting for pretty much all of Europe and the UK.
Coding Rate
8 - This is the default setting for pretty much all of Europe and the UK.
Transmit Power
22 dBm - This is the default setting, no need to change anything manually here. Be aware that this may need to be adjusted if you are using any kind if amplifiers or antennas with high gains to stay in compliance with the EIRP.
Airtime Factor
1 - Is the recommendation by the MeshCore community as well as the default setting.
However, the legal limit for the Duty Cycle here in Europe on the 869.525 MHz frequency is 10%, which would technically require the AF to be set to 9. Since MeshCore is not sending a lot and we mostly see the Duty Cycle being less than 1% in reality, so keeping the AF set to 1 does not mean that we go over the duty cycle by definition.
To get from a 10% duty cycle to the Airtime factor this formula can be used duty_cycle = 100/(airtime_factor + 1).
General Settings
These are the settings we recommend to use on all MeshCore nodes, no matter what role they are.
Admin Password
We recommend to change the default admin password which is "password" to something only you know to avoid other users messing around with the settings of the MeshCore repeaters you manage.
Guest Password
We recommend to leave the guest password empty! This allows other users to read the basic statistics, telemetry and neighbours from the repeater without being able to change any settings.
Advert Interval
There are two settings here for the repeaters to advertise themselves automatically, the Zero-Hop-Advert and the Flood-Advert.
Zero-Hop-Advert:
0- Disable, since this is a local advert only, we basically don't need it since the Flood-Advert below covers this too.
Flood-Advert:
12 - We currently recommend to set this to 12 hours to avoid unnecessary traffic. Companion Nodes do not need to know repeaters to be able to use them, it is therefore not really important that the repeaters send a lot of adverts.
RX Delay
0.0 - This is the currently proposed best setting by the MeshCore community.
TX Delay
0.5 - This is the currently proposed best setting by the MeshCore community.
Time
It is really important for MeshCore that the repeaters have the correct time set, if not you might see issues with advertising etc. The easiest way to do that is to use "Remote Management" from within the Android or iOS App with a Companion Node. For RAK based repeater nodes it is recommended to add the RTC module.
Map
For repeaters we heavily recommend adding the to the official MeshCore Map. This can be done directly done via the MeshCore Android or iOS App.
Repeaters
These are the additional settings to the "General Settings" above which we recommend to use on all MeshCore Repeater nodes.
Admin Password
We recommend to change the default admin password which is "password" to something only you know to avoid other users messing around with the settings of the MeshCore room servers you manage.
Guest Password
The default default guest password is "hello", if you want others to be able to post in the MeshCore rooms server leave it as it is. If you only want users to join with which you shared the password, change it accordingly.
Advert Interval
There are two settings here for the repeaters to advertise themselves automatically, the Zero-Hop-Advert and the Flood-Advert.
Zero-Hop-Advert:
0 - Disable, since this is a local advert only, we basically don't need it since the Flood-Advert below covers this too.
Flood-Advert:
3 - We currently recommend to set this to the lowest possible setting of 3 hours.
RX Delay
0.0 - This is the currently proposed best setting by the MeshCore community.
TX Delay
0.5 - This is the currently proposed best setting by the MeshCore community.
Enable Repeater
MeshCore rooms servers can also be MeshCore repeaters at the same time. This is disabled by default, enable it if desired.
Time
It is really important for MeshCore that the repeaters have the correct time set, if not you might see issues with advertising etc. The easiest way to do that is to use "Remote Management" from within the Android or iOS App with a Companion Node. For RAK based repeater nodes it is recommended to add the RTC module.
Map
For room servers we heavily recommend adding them to the official MeshCore Map. This can be done directly done via the MeshCore Android or iOS App.
Room Servers
These are the additional settings to the "General Settings" above which we recommend to use on all MeshCore Room Server nodes.