Three meshes across Scotland, one community.
ScotMesh people run three separate radio networks. They do not talk to each other, and you do not have to pick just one — but you do have to start somewhere. Here is what each is for, and what all three are doing right now.
Long-range LoRa messaging on cheap radios. The mesh reaches from the top of Scotland down through the Isles and across to the south of the Republic of Ireland, and it has the most tooling behind it: a live map, coverage built from real packets, and alerts when a repeater goes quiet.
Long-range LoRa messaging with an app on your phone. Scotland only, and the easiest of the three to get the hang of — the widest hardware support, the most documentation, and the largest node count here.
An encrypted network with no accounts and no central authority, carried over LoRa, I2P or plain internet. The only one of the three you can join without buying anything: connect over the internet, and add a radio later if you want one.
Node positions on the map are real; the moving traffic is illustrative, shaped like each network's behaviour. Figures come from each network's own tools, refreshed every few minutes. They are not the same measure — a MeshCore repeater, a Meshtastic node and a Reticulum client are different things — so read them as signs of life, not a league table.
Repeaters carry the message
Long-range LoRa messaging on cheap radios. What makes it MeshCore is the repeater: a radio left on a hill, a mast or a roof whose only job is to pass messages on.
Your radio just has to reach one repeater. From there the message hops repeater to repeater across the country, and each hop is recorded, so the route it took can be seen.
- Fixed repeaters on high ground do the carrying
- Every hop is recorded in the packet
- Reach depends on where the repeaters are
Every radio repeats what it hears
Long-range LoRa messaging with an app on your phone. There is no special infrastructure: every radio is also a relay, and repeats what it hears to everyone in range.
A message ripples outward a few hops in every direction and stops. The more radios there are in an area, the further a message can travel.
- No dedicated infrastructure needed
- A message floods a few hops, then stops
- Reach depends on how many radios are about
Any link will do
Not tied to any one radio, or to radio at all: a way of moving encrypted messages over whatever is available — LoRa, the internet, I2P, satellite, even MeshCore or Meshtastic — without caring which.
A message is sealed at your end and opened only at theirs. Everything in between, including our transport node, carries it without being able to read it.
- Encrypted end to end, by default
- Runs over LoRa, the internet, I2P, satellite — even the other two meshes
- No accounts, no central authority