Important: Updated Repeater Settings

We've been busy the last few weeks rolling out new tools and coordinating changes to repeater settings. We encourage everyone who operates a repeater to adopt these settings as soon as possible.

We've also been visiting several of our primary repeater sites in SW Idaho to check on things, upgrade firmware to support multi-byte paths, and we're actively exploring sites for our next primary repeaters. If you have ideas for new sites, want to share coverage feedback, have a high-profile location and want to host an IdahoMesh repeater, or have questions, please reach out and chat with us.

New Map & other tools

We now have an Idaho Mesh Map. More than just a map, it includes a lot of tools and analytics you may find useful.

We have an MQTT broker mqtt.idahomesh.org which feeds the Idaho Mesh Map and other mapping, analytics, and troubleshooting tools in our stack. We already have observers in North, Central, and Southwest Idaho pushing data to our server (thank you!). We'd love to have more folks helping out; if you're running a current version of the Observer Firmware, there's an idahomesh preset you can use to automatically configure your observer to contribute to our map. For other tools, visit the IdahoMesh Observers page for complete settings.

Already running an observer and pushing data to LetsMesh or other mapping tools? Great! Most tools, including the observer firmware, allow you to push traffic to multiple MQTT servers. Many of us are pushing to LetsMesh as well as other national and regional MQTT targets.

IdahoMesh Health Check is another tool we've been playing with recently, fed by the same MQTT data as our map. Let us know if you find it useful.

If there are other tools you'd like to see on IdahoMesh.org, let us know.

Repeater Settings Changes

Our recommended repeater settings are changing; we've already begun rolling out these changes to primary repeaters in Southwest and Central Idaho and encourage all repeater owners to do the same. If you are setting up a new repeater, or it's been a while, please see our full repeater settings page: Repeater Settings.

Here's a quick reference; see below for more details on each change.

Path Hash Mode for Adverts

We are encouraging all repeater owners to enable 2-byte path advertisements on repeaters. This is a step toward multi-byte paths for all nodes, but at this time we are only recommending it for repeaters. This will help us track multi-byte support across the mesh and reduce the frequency of repeater ID collisions, improving our ability to do mesh diagnostics. There are no downsides to moving repeaters to 2-byte paths as they only affect the repeater's own advertisements. You can enable this remotely via the console set path.hash.mode 1 or via the GUI if directly connected. You must reboot the node for this to take effect.

Advert Interval

Our mesh has grown to the point that frequent repeater adverts are not helpful, and we will soon be at the point where they are harmful. New firmwares now default to sending an advert every 47 hours; this is our recommendation. In almost all cases, Zero-Hop adverts should be set to 0 minutes, which is off. MeshCore now includes features that replace the need for more frequent adverts; nodes that advert more often are tying up very limited mesh airtime. Please do not set flood adverts to less than 24 hours.
set advert.interval 0
set flood.advert.interval 47

Region Change

We started rolling out the idaho region the day the first region-enabled firmware was released back in January. It has served us well, but as regions have matured in the firmware, most of the meshes across the west have started converging on a common pattern. We think it's worth adopting sooner rather than later, as the migration will be easier now and improves future interconnectivity. As such, the idaho region is being retired and replaced with id. We are also adopting larger region scopes that are emerging.

For Southwest Idaho repeaters on firmware 1.16.0 or newer:
region remove idaho
region def west pnw id sw-id boi
region save

If you're elsewhere in the state, check with other locals to ensure you're all on the same page and/or hop in our Discord and ask; we're happy to help.

If you're on an older firmware, you'll need to use the region put command. Please verify the region documentation for your firmware version, though we do suggest a more current firmware.

Firmware

On a personal note, as someone operating well over a dozen MeshCore repeaters, many of them in remote and hard-to-get-to locations, I know updating firmware is a pain. I've got several running ancient firmware (I'll get to most of those in the next week). If your repeater firmware is older than 1.14.0 (March 2026), you're missing out on multi-byte path support as well as months of changes that improve repeater and overall mesh performance. I'd highly recommend planning an upgrade to the newly released 1.17.0 in the near future.

Making these changes on your repeaters helps ensure our mesh operates smoothly. We thank everyone who maintains a MeshCore repeater in or near Idaho for their contribution to the IdahoMesh.

Impact

These changes do not negatively impact current mesh traffic; on the contrary, they help ensure our mesh is ready for increased traffic load, especially as all the smaller meshes in the West start to interconnect. Managing performance during this time will be critical.

We've had several folks ask if we were planning to lock down repeaters and require the use of regions rather than the current setting, which allows all unscoped traffic. Realistically, there will come a time when we will need to set some key repeaters to require region scopes. We have had to do this already, temporarily, in the early days of IdahoMesh for various reasons, but at this time we have no plans to require region scopes.

I'm not sure when we'll need to start requiring region scopes on the more high-profile repeaters, but it will happen at some point. I'm hoping to give everyone at least a few months to adopt the new regions before that is needed. And if we do need to, we'll certainly communicate it well in advance. But there is no specific timeline for it at this time.

Thanks!

I'm so excited about MeshCore in Idaho! When I put up the first high-profile repeater in Southwest Idaho late last year (December 31, iirc), I had no idea how instantly successful it would be as the few of us with rooftop repeaters could finally link together. As I traveled extensively all over the state this summer (literally...), I was amazed at how far we've collectively come in the last several months. Every major region in the state has a functional mesh, and most are growing at an insane pace. North Idaho is interconnected with Spokane and further west with the Cascadia Mesh. East Idaho is interconnected with Salt Lake City. And meshes are even starting to pop up in very isolated mountain communities like my hometown of Salmon. That's awesome. Keep up the great work, everyone; keep being welcoming to newcomers, and don't be afraid to reach out and ask for help, or to organize and coordinate on new mesh project areas or sites.