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 summarised / named "Narrow". For more details or if you have any questions, make sure to check out our Swiss MeshCore Community here.

General Settings

These are the settings we recommend to use on all MeshCore nodes, no matter what role they are.

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
62.5 kHz - 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 of amplifiers or antennas with high gains to stay in compliance with the EIRP.

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 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 Minutes - Zero means no zero-hop adverts get sent. It's usually not needed since flood adverts already cover this.

Flood-Advert: 24 Hours - To keep the traffic on the mesh low, we recommend to set this to an absolute minimum of 24 hours, 48 hours is even better.

REGION

For a well working Mesh we strongly recommend configuring the regions specifically for Switzerland.

More details…

DUTY CYCLE (AF)

9 – Since the release 1.14.0 and newer a correct handling for the duty cycle was implemented. We recommend to set this to the maximum allowed 10% legal limit on the 869.618 MHz frequency we use. This can be achieved with the command:

set af 9

More details…

RX Delay
0.0 Seconds - This is the currently proposed best setting. It's the default setting, no need to change it manually.
TX Delay
0.5 Seconds - This is the currently proposed best setting. It's the default setting, no need to change it manually.
Repeat Settings
You can completely enable and disable the complete repeating of packages on a repeater. This is mainly for testing and should be set to enabled.
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

Repeaters will eventually be picked up by the automatic map-updater we have running and get automatically added to the map if they are within range.

More details…

Room Servers

These are the additional settings to the "General Settings" above which we recommend to use on all MeshCore Room Server 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 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 room servers to advertise themselves automatically, the Zero-Hop-Advert and the Flood-Advert.

Zero-Hop-Advert: 0 Minutes - Zero means no zero-hop adverts get sent. It's usually not needed since flood adverts already cover this.

Flood-Advert: 24 Hours - To keep the traffic on the mesh low, we recommend to set this to an absolute minimum of 24 hours, 48 hours is even better.

RX Delay
0.0 Seconds - This is the currently proposed best setting. It's the default setting, no need to change it manually.
TX Delay
0.5 Seconds - This is the currently proposed best setting. It's the default setting, no need to change it manually.
Enable Repeater
MeshCore rooms servers can also be MeshCore repeaters at the same time. This is disabled by default, enable it if desired. If you do so, make sure to check the recommended Repeater Settings above.
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 via the MeshCore Android or iOS App.