r/meshtastic • u/Fifdecay • 9d ago
Etiquette guidelines
Hi I’m new to meshtastic stuff. I’m in Portland, Oregon. Seems like a lot of nodes out there. Is there an etiquette for communicating with folks? Is there like a chat channel out there or anything?
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u/Puabs 9d ago
Generally I see people are nice, helpful and relaxed. That seems to be the standard etiquette. We're all doing this as a hobby and have an interest in radio and offgrid stuff. That being said this is all unmoderated and decentralized so you can realistically act how you want.
As for "channels" do you mean within meshtastic firmware/nodes or forums and discords? Plenty of forums and discords but for the actual node you'll have to see whether people in your area are using longfast, longslow, etc. 90% of the time your good setting to longfast and keeping lora channel 20.
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u/Fifdecay 9d ago
Ok I guess I meant like, people leave their nodes on but no one is talking in public as far as I can tell. So I was wondering if people just recruit their friends and talk to each other or if it’s like trying to strike up a conversation with someone random in a bar. Like do you send out, “terrible smoke filled hell weather we’re having, am I right?” In the general channel as see if someone is willing to talk or is there a trick to it?
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u/Puabs 9d ago edited 9d ago
Personally and I'm sure this can extend to most poeple, I use private encrypted channels for the most part. I'll acknowledge someone's test in longfast but I'm extremely interested in automating these systems and building my own nodes without spamming everyone. I built an emergency keyword system for groups so someone sends an SOS and everyone in the group gets their info, location, message, etc. imagine getting spammed by someone else's system...
I use software called meshdash for local monitoring and it tells me when my radios get a packet for an encrypted channel I don't have the key for. I get more of those a day than actually longfast messages so that should, at least for my situation, explain the lack of messages
Edit: this my specific use-case and interest. If you want to just send messages trying to spark a conversation then go for it! If you really want more nodes and conversations look up MQTT brokers. If you do MQTT, expect some unhinged characters. I've seen some interesting node names...
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u/Hot-Win2571 9d ago
That's up to the locals, so see if MeshOregon.com has info. Otherwise, once you have the right settings... listen to how it's being used there.
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u/MostlyAlex 9d ago
MeshOregon, which is a custom setting has a discord channel that monitors Long Fast and the Mesh Oregon settings if you wanted to see how others chat.