Meshtastic

676 readers

41 users here now

A community to discuss Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction)

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Unrecognized nodes? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Got my first two devices on tuesday and I've been traveling around with them! Seems the t114 has much better range but is a less convenient package of course (and damn amazon didn't ship my GPS module, so now that is on the way with an upgraded antenna and a heltec v3 cause why not?)

I've been able to make a few connections, but I had a couple questions about some of them.

I've been able to connect to a few nodes around town, even got one reply, but there seems to be two categories of nodes, some "recognized" and some "unrecognized." Does anyone know why that could be? Can I still talk to them if they're unrecognized, and/or do they still route packets? Can I fix that or do the other nodes' owners have to?

Glad I finally got into it, been having fun and apparently my area has some activity (even if I'm in a deadzone at the bottom of a hill for now.)

Edit: Ok I keep forgetting about redlib so I think I don't have access to Ye Olde Country because VPN and I refuse all apps, but I just remembered and searched there! So if anyone else has this question like me it seems that:

Simply not enought packets have arrived to get that info

No nodeinfo received. Either wait longer or request user info manually.

And

These appear to be running an older version of the meshtastic firmware [pre-2.5] which likely do not have an updated public key.

top 4 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I just started playing around with Meshtastic a few days ago, but I may be able to answer some of your questions since I've been reading through the docs pretty heavily. If any of this is incorrect, please enlighten me as, again, I'm a noob to this myself.

If you haven't changed the primary channel key (e.g. you're using the defaults that came with the firmware), then the nodes yours sees as "recognized" are also using the same default channel key. You can talk to them. The nodes that are unrecognized/unknown are on the same LoRa frequency but have different channel keys. You can't talk to them (nor them you).

Yes, if they're unrecognized, they can still route packets unless their owners have them configured not to (e.g. if they set their device mode to something like CLIENT_MUTE which doesn't forward). Nodes can forward packets even if they're not able to decrypt them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the answers! I've been looking through the docs myself a bit but wasn't sure about those questions.

Afaik, I did change the primary to protect my GPS from going to the whole network (since as I understand it, GPS is shared over primary, however this also makes me question how I can see some of their locations, if my primary is not the same), buuut I did read that section in the docs and it mentioned manually changing the Frequency Slot back to 20 (US) which I did, so I think I'm still on the right one? I also set up channel 1 (secondary) as the OG LongFast AQ==, and that's where I was actually able to make the one contact. So maybe the ones I can see all did that, and the unrecognized are on default, I guess? But then I thought the point of manually changing the Frequency Slot back to 20 was that I'd still be "default" but with protected GPS, so idk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I also set up channel 1 (secondary) as the OG LongFast AQ==, and that's where I was actually able to make the one contact

Ok, that also answers one of my own questions: if I wanted to protect my primary channel but still be part of the "public" mesh -- that seems possible assuming I manually set the frequency slot to match what the "default" channel expects.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

...I think yes? Haha. As far as I understand it, as long as you do that, and then manually set the Freq Slot to your region's default (20 for US) then people can't see your GPS unless they have the primary key, but I'm not 100% on that myself!