MeshCom

(updated / edited 16/Feb/2025)

Having played with Meshtastic a little while ago I came across an amateur radio specific mesh, MeshCom (https://icssw.org/en/meshcom/). Aimed at 70cm operations and with callsigns required I thought this was a better way forward than Meshtastic which, in our area at least is (or was at the time anyway) entirely used for people asking if they can be heard.

MeshCom will work on a variety of hardware similar to Meshtastic. I opted for a RAK setup because it has an Ethernet module and I personally prefer this over wifi connectivity. It also gives the possibility of powering the device using PoE which in turn makes it easy to remotely power cycle it.

So, the RAK hardware duly arrived via Aliexpress and is easy to assemble, literally plug and play. I got the RAK 4631 RF module, 19007 base board, 13800 Ethernet interface and 19018 PoE module.

Firmware is loaded by simply downloading the file from the MeshCom website, althogh it can be quite hard to find. Once that is done, the RAK module is set to appear as a USB disk by quickly clicking the reset button twice. The firmware is dragged across and the RAK resets and loads the firmware up. Nice and easy. It can be configured via the console (e.g.PuTTY, or 'screen' on the Mac) and also via an iPhone app via Bluetooth (BLE). I set it all up with my callsign etc and got a welcome message from a German amateur almost immediately. Nodes can be found via https://meshcom.oevsv.at

However, there is an issue with PoE. It doesn't work, although it important to note that this is not a fault of MeshCom. Looking at my Netgear switch it looks like the RAK is trying to negotiate but continually fails. A search on the web found that there is an issue whereby the RAK PoE module is simply not sinking sufficient power and one option is to wire a resistor across its output - I have yet to try this, because there is a further issue...

The main issue is that the RAK would freeze at random, sometimes in as little as 5 seconds from boot. This has improved a lot since I installed Meshtastic to ensure the RAK device was ok - it was, that was stable for hours - and reinstalled the firmware after again erasing it all. It managed an hour this way, then froze, but after a reboot it has been running for many hours.

I would report this but as yet after 8 months of being a member of the relevant groups.io group I am moderated as a new member and so cannot send messages.

Anyway, I also installed the software on a T-Beam and after finding the latest firware (4.34o), which was a struggle in itself, I can send messages from it to the mesh via the RAK device as gateway.

There is currently very little MeshCom activity in the UK - 4 nodes I think - but I am sure this will spread once the software is better known. There is a lot of activity on the continent.

Now to sort the PoE issue, make a box and give it a decent collinear.