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Mesh Etiquette & Best Practices

In a shared radio frequency spectrum, cooperative behavior ensures that the mesh remains fast, reliable, and unpolluted.

1. Device Roles: Choosing the Right Role​

Setting the correct role on your node is critical to keeping the Armenian mesh fast and preventing packet storms:

  • CLIENT (Default): Standard role for handheld and portable mobile nodes. Participates in the mesh, forwards packets intelligently, and sleeps when appropriate.
  • CLIENT_MUTE (For Indoor Nodes): If your node is located indoors (in an apartment, on lower floors, or behind concrete walls), set it to CLIENT_MUTE. It can send and receive messages normally, but won't re-transmit packets that can't effectively escape your building, saving valuable airtime for the community.
  • CLIENT_BASE (For Home Stations): If you own both a stationary home node and a portable/pocket node, configure your home-based station as CLIENT_BASE.
  • ROUTER (High Elevation Only): Recommended ONLY if the node is installed on a high rooftop (floor 9 or higher) or on a mountain peak with unobstructed 360° line of sight and continuous power.
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  • The legacy REPEATER role is deprecated: Do not use REPEATER. In modern Meshtastic firmware, use ROUTER for high-elevation infrastructure.
  • Avoid ROUTER_CLIENT or SENSOR: These roles are not recommended for general community members.
  • Never set low-elevation or indoor nodes to ROUTER: It causes severe packet contention and degrades network performance for everyone across Yerevan and surrounding areas.

2. Node Naming Guidelines​

Keep your node identity simple, clean, and compatible:

  1. No Emojis: Emojis consume 4 or more bytes per character in LoRa packet payloads, causing packet truncation and rendering bugs on small OLED and E-Ink displays.
  2. English (ASCII) Characters Only: Avoid Cyrillic, Armenian letters, or special unicode symbols. Non-ASCII characters cause encoding issues across different client apps and older firmware versions.
  3. Keep Long Name Under 15 Characters: Shorter names minimize packet sizes and conserve channel airtime (e.g. Yundin Repeater, Tina DiPierro, kita home).
  4. Short Name (4 Characters Max): A 4-character abbreviation displayed in message previews (e.g. YRPT, TIV4, kitD, AKRZ).

3. Position & GPS Broadcast Intervals​

Broadcasting coordinates every 60 seconds severely saturates the shared 868 MHz channel and drains node batteries across the city!

  • Enable Smart Position (For Portable / Mobile Nodes):
    • Turn Smart Position ON under Settings -> Position.
    • Smart Position adapts transmissions dynamically: when resting or walking slowly, the node stops broadcasting duplicates; when traveling past your configured minimum distance threshold (e.g. 100m), it transmits an updated fix.
  • Stationary Home Nodes (CLIENT_BASE, CLIENT_MUTE):
    • Increase GPS broadcast intervals to at least 30 to 120 minutes (1800 to 7200 seconds), or configure a Fixed Position once.
  • Node Info Broadcast: Set to 3–6 hours (10,800 to 21,600 seconds).

4. Telemetry Etiquette: Conserving Spectrum​

Device telemetry packets (battery voltage, channel utilization) can quickly consume 40%+ of mesh airtime if left unconfigured:

  • Stationary Home Nodes (Plugged into USB 24/7):
    • Disable Device Telemetry or increase the interval to 2–6 hours. Continuously broadcasting "100% battery" every 2 minutes wastes shared airtime and offers zero practical value.
  • Nodes Operating Without a Battery:
    • If your device has no LiPo / 18650 cell attached and runs exclusively on USB power, disable battery telemetry to avoid polluting the mesh with 0V / 0% readings.
  • Environment Telemetry:
    • Disable environment sensors unless physical sensors (BME280, BMP280, SHT31) are actively wired to the node. When installed, set sensor broadcast intervals to 30–60 minutes.

5. MQTT & Gateway Etiquette​

  1. Keep Downlink Disabled on Client Nodes: Unless you are a network operator managing an authorized bidirectional bridge, never enable Downlink on public MQTT. Downlink rebroadcasts internet packets over RF, easily saturating the local 868 MHz airtime.
  2. Respect ignore_mqtt and OkToMQTT: The community values privacy and consent. The official gateway only forwards packets to public MQTT if OkToMQTT is enabled, and strictly drops packets from nodes configured with ignore_mqtt = true.
  3. Use the Designated Regional Topic: Always use /msh/EU_868/AM/ to properly route Armenian mesh telemetry.
  4. Learn More: Read the comprehensive Channel Configuration Guide and Community MQTT Setup Guide.