Meshtastic
Direct and relayed communications, RSSI/SNR observations, hop counts, position reporting, and mobile/drive testing.
Arizona · Field Testing
Interesting results are not the same as reliable evidence.
Community Frequency is testing communications systems in real-world conditions before making claims about what they can do. Current Arizona experiments examine both Meshtastic and MeshCore.
MeshCore
Repeaters, learned paths, flood discovery, direct path learning, mobility, Room Servers, and multi-hop behavior.
Reproducibility
Moving from one-off demonstrations toward defined routes, repeated measurements, timestamps, power states, and independently verified paths.
What the early work is showing
Experiments have demonstrated direct links as well as relayed traffic, varying hop counts, repeater behavior, learned paths, and significant changes in delivery depending on location and conditions.
For example, a September 2 Meshtastic test recorded a direct message at approximately -44 dBm RSSI, +11.25 dB SNR, 0 hops. During movement, both direct and relayed traffic were observed.
MeshCore testing has also confirmed repeater behavior in a controlled test: a #test message from MC2 was shown as repeated by the WY1B repeater with a one-hop path.
Important: these are observations from specific experiments. They are not formal coverage maps or universal performance claims. RSSI/SNR at an intermediate node are not automatically end-to-end RF measurements, and hop count is not distance.
Testing restarted: MeshCore infrastructure
On September 8, 2026, MeshCore testing restarted with a more infrastructure-oriented structure. Dedicated solar repeaters, a Room Server, and portable companion nodes will be tested as a small-scale system rather than only as individual devices.
The purpose is to examine infrastructure behavior, service availability, path behavior, coverage, reliability, and operational maintenance.
What comes next
- Use fixed radio and antenna configurations where possible.
- Define test routes or test points.
- Repeat measurements rather than relying on one successful run.
- Record delivery, RSSI, SNR, hop count, timestamp, environmental conditions, and power state.
- Independently verify repeater identities before assigning path identifiers.
- Publish appropriate geographic precision without exposing sensitive locations.