Frequently Asked Questions

Palouse Mesh is a volunteer-run, off-grid radio network covering the Palouse and Clearwater regions of southeastern Washington and north-central Idaho. It lets people send encrypted text messages without cell service, internet, or fees — using small, low-cost LoRa radios.

Both run on similar LoRa hardware, but the firmware and protocols are different — they can't talk to each other directly. Palouse Mesh runs MeshCore, which routes packets through known paths rather than flooding the whole network.

Good news if you already have a Meshtastic device: chances are it can run MeshCore too. Most common LoRa boards are supported — check meshcore.io/flasher to see if yours is listed.

Yes. As long as you're within range of a node or repeater, messages get through — the radio handles it. No cell signal needed at either end.

Some dashboards (Beacon, CoreScope, MeshMapper) require internet to view, but the mesh itself does not.

Private messages are end-to-end encrypted. Channel messages use shared channel keys — anyone with the key can read them. The Public channel is unencrypted and visible to all nodes.

You can also create your own private encrypted group by adding a channel with a custom key that you share only with your group. Anyone without that key sees nothing.

Range depends heavily on terrain and antenna height:

• Urban / in-town: 1–5 miles handheld to handheld
• Hilltop repeater: 20–40+ miles line-of-sight
• Through a repeater: messages can travel 100+ miles across the region via hops

The Palouse rolling hills are actually great for this — hilltop repeaters have wide line-of-sight coverage across the open farmland.

The Palouse Mesh is built for rural areas. Open farmland and rolling hills are actually ideal for LoRa — a repeater on a ridge can cover a huge swath of countryside.

If you've got a node flashed and can't hear anything, we want to know about it. Reach out through the Palouse Mesh Facebook group — someone can help figure out if there's a coverage gap or a config issue. And if you have a high point on your property, putting up a repeater is one of the best ways to expand coverage in your area.

No. MeshCore operates in the 900 MHz ISM band (unlicensed), so no amateur radio license is required to use a companion device or even run a repeater. However, if you're interested in the radio hobby side, a Technician license opens up a lot more.

A MeshCore-compatible LoRa radio. See the Inland NW Mesh hardware guide for current recommendations and where to buy.

All nodes on the PUW region network use these settings:

• Frequency: 910.525 MHz
• Bandwidth: 62.5 kHz
• Spreading Factor: 7
• Coding Rate: 5 (default — does not need to match between nodes)

Never change Frequency, BW, or SF — a mismatch means your radio can't hear the network at all.

In the MeshCore app, go to Channels → Add Public Room and type the channel name (e.g. #thepalouse). The app will derive the channel key automatically. See the channel directory for a full list of active channels and QR codes.

• CoreScope — live map, node list, packet inspector, channel viewer
• Beacon — packet analytics, traces, node stats, RF heatmap
• MeshMapper — regional node map with neighbor connections

A few reasons:

• You need to send an advert. Companions don't appear until they broadcast a flood packet. In the MeshCore app go to Settings → Send Advert (or just send a message to the Public channel — that triggers one). Repeaters advertise automatically on boot.
• Your node needs to be heard by an Observer — a node connected to the internet that feeds data to the dashboards. If you're out of range of an observer, you won't appear even if you're on the mesh.
• To show up on the map with a location pin, your node needs a set location — either GPS-derived or manually entered in settings. The node will still appear in node lists without one, just without a map position.
• There's a short delay between when a packet is received and when it shows on the dashboard.

Follow the Repeater Setup guide to flash and configure a node. To get it on the dashboards, you'll also need an Observer nearby — see the Observer Setup guide. Reach out at Palouse Mesh Community if you need help with placement.