Core Technical Configurations

These are the community-standard settings for NWI Mesh Net. If every node uses them, the mesh stays fast and reliable for everyone. Set these once when you flash a node and you are done.

The settings table

Setting	Recommended value	Why
LoRa Region	US (915 MHz)	The legal band for Indiana. A wrong region means you cannot hear anyone.
Modem preset	LongFast	The community standard. A node on any other preset is invisible to the mesh.
Primary channel name	LongFast	Case-sensitive. longfast or Longfast will not join the mesh.
Frequency slot	0 (default)	Standard slot for US LongFast.
Hop limit	3	Enough to cross the region through our infrastructure nodes. See below before raising it.
Transmit enabled	On	Required to participate. Off makes your node listen-only.
Device role	CLIENT	Correct for almost every node. See Node Roles Explained.
OK to MQTT	On	Lets your node appear on maps. Off keeps you local-only.
Node info interval	10800 s (3 hours)	Reduces chatter so the airwaves stay clear.
Position broadcast	1800 s or longer (fixed nodes)	See Position Settings.
Max transmit power	Highest your board supports	Most Meshtastic boards top out near 22 dBm. Higher numbers in the app do not add power the radio cannot produce.

About the hop limit

Use 3. That is the Meshtastic default and it is enough to cross Northwest Indiana through our infrastructure nodes.

Every hop re-transmits your packet on every node that hears it, so airtime cost grows quickly with the hop limit. A mesh where everyone runs 7 hops spends most of its capacity rebroadcasting old traffic, and messages start failing for everyone. The maximum is 7, but treat anything above 3 as a deliberate, temporary experiment, not a default.

Raise it only if you have a specific, tested reason: you are in a fringe area, you know the path takes more than three hops, and you have confirmed the extra hops actually help. Then put it back.

Transmit enabled

This is the master switch for your radio. Keep it on so your node contributes to the mesh.

Turn it off only when you are powering up a board with no antenna attached (transmitting without an antenna can damage the radio chip), or when you deliberately want a receive-only node. For a receive-only node, prefer the CLIENT_MUTE role over disabling transmit, so the node can still answer for itself.

OK to MQTT

This is a consent setting for your node's data once any node on the mesh has an internet connection.

• On: your node name, battery level, and position (if position is enabled) may be published to MQTT and can appear on public maps.
• Off: your node stays local to the radio mesh and is not published to the internet.

Either choice is fine. If you want to show up on our map, leave it on. See MQTT Settings for the relay details, and Position Settings if you would rather share a coarse location than a precise one.

Device roles in one line

• CLIENT — the default, and the right answer for nearly every node. Clients relay traffic for the mesh.
• CLIENT_MUTE — receives but never relays. For dense areas or nodes you want to keep quiet.
• ROUTER / REPEATER — infrastructure only: high sites, clear line of sight, always-on power.

Full explanation, including why more routers make the mesh worse, is in Node Roles Explained.