Meshtastic, four ways

Firmware, tooling, a web client and a routing monitor for LoRa mesh, plus DMR on the ham side. The printed Heltec cases came out of the same effort.

RunningFirmware & radio · 3D printing

Reference

5Repositories
915MHz band

Meshtastic puts a LoRa mesh on cheap hardware, which makes it the closest thing to a personal emergency comms network that does not need a repeater, a licence, or anyone else's infrastructure. It is slow and it is text only, and that is the point: it works at power levels and distances that Wi-Fi does not.

DMR sits alongside it on the licensed side, for when there is a repeater and the traffic actually matters.

What is in the tree

Repo	What it does
`meshtastic`	Notes, configs, and node inventory
`meshtastic-firmware`	My custom builds for the boards I actually run
`meshtastic-tools`	Scripts: bulk config, channel keys, node export
`meshtastic-web`	A trimmed web client
`desqmesh`	Routing monitor, renders the mesh as a graph

Nodes

Heltec V3 and V4 boards, some with GPS. The V4 cases are printed rather than bought, because the off-the-shelf ones do not leave room for the GPS module and its antenna lead.

Log

5 Sep 2026

Firmware for responsible downlink

Downlinking from MQTT seems to be a controversial topic, at least in some meshtastic circles. I tend to think downlinking when done responsibly should be a default mode; it helps tremendously with coherance of conversations that straddle the hop limit and extends useful range across regional boundaries.

I'll be experimenting with some theories as to what is "responsible" across the limits of my 7-hop RF range here in the PNW with customized firmware and the help of a couple of volunteers, to cover the entire I-5 corrider from Longview, OR to Blaine, WA with some well placed MQTT linked repeaters.

25 Aug 2026

A routing monitor, and a case to put the node in

Two things landed the same day. The routing monitor finally renders the mesh as a graph rather than a log, which makes it obvious when a node is relaying and when it is just shouting.

The printed case is for a Heltec v4 with the GPS module attached, which the off-the-shelf cases do not allow for. Printed in PETG, about two and a quarter hours on the A1 Mini. The GPS cutout needed a second revision; the first one fouled the antenna lead.

24 Aug 2026

Heltec v4 on 2.7.20

Flashed the v4 boards to 2.7.20. Nothing dramatic, but worth recording which build is on which node, because working that out later from the device itself is more annoying than it should be.