Meshtastic-GOSHkathmandu

Meshtastic LoRa mesh for Kathmandu: a control panel, tools and a beginner’s guide

Off-grid text messaging and simple sensors over LoRa radio, using Meshtastic on cheap ESP32 boards, set up for Nepal (region NP_865). This repository holds a small web control panel, two diagnostic scripts and a step-by-step guide written for makers, and for anyone who knows WiFi and Bluetooth but is new to LoRa.

📖 Read the guide online: https://saadcaffeine.github.io/Meshtastic-GOSHkathmandu/

The Meshtastic control panel showing the operating mode cards, a live count of nearby WiFi and Bluetooth devices, and a live view of the mesh The control panel running against its built-in simulated board.

What is this?

Meshtastic is open-source firmware that turns small, inexpensive LoRa radio boards into a long-range, off-grid mesh network. Nodes pass messages for each other, so no phone signal, WiFi or internet is needed.

This project is a tech demo and an educational experiment with LoRa and sensors for Kathmandu, Nepal. It uses three boards:

Board Role in this project
Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3 Listener / desk node with a screen
Seeed XIAO ESP32S3 + Wio-SX1262 kit ×2 One map reporter (WiFi → MQTT → meshmap.net), one Paxcounter sensor

What’s in the repository

Folder What it is
panel/ A web control panel that runs on the computer the board is plugged into (Mac, Linux or Raspberry Pi). It switches the board between operating modes and shows a live dashboard: nearby devices (Paxcounter), nodes and signal, packets, battery, channel use and a raw packet log. Optional add-on modules extend it; the first, Messages, lets you read and send channel and direct messages.
tools/ Diagnostic scripts: radio_check.py compares two boards’ radio settings and listens for each other; paxwatch.py prints Paxcounter counts and packet totals in the terminal.
docs/ The guide, published with GitHub Pages: LoRa for WiFi and Bluetooth users, hardware, first setup, Nepal’s NP_865 region, Paxcounter, map reporting, troubleshooting, FAQ and a glossary.

Quick start

1. Flash and set up a board (5 minutes)

  1. Open the Meshtastic Web Flasher in Chrome or Edge, pick your board and flash it. Use the same firmware version on every board you want to talk to each other (see Troubleshooting).
  2. Install the Meshtastic Python CLI: 
    pip3 install --upgrade "meshtastic[cli]"     # macOS: pipx install "meshtastic[cli]"
  3. Set the region for Nepal. The radio stays silent until a region is set: 
    meshtastic --set lora.region NP_865

    Everything else (the LONG_FAST preset, the default channel and key) can stay at its default. Full details: Getting started.

2. Run the control panel

cd panel
python3 -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python server.py --mock        # try it with a simulated board, no hardware needed
python server.py               # with a real board on USB

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080. Close the Meshtastic web client and any serial monitor first, because only one program can use the USB port at a time. See panel/README.md for running it on a Raspberry Pi and on your network.

3. Check two boards can hear each other

cd tools
python radio_check.py             # run once per board; it compares the saved reports

New to LoRa? The 60-second version for WiFi and Bluetooth users

  WiFi Bluetooth LoRa (Meshtastic)
Typical range tens of metres a few metres to tens of metres 1–10+ km line of sight, hundreds of metres in a city
Speed many Mbit/s about 1–2 Mbit/s about 1 kbit/s (short text and sensor data only)
Needs a router or phone? yes (access point) yes (paired device) no: every node relays for the others
Frequency in Nepal 2.4 / 5 GHz 2.4 GHz 865–868 MHz (NP_865)
Power high low very low: days on a small battery

The longer explainer: LoRa for WiFi and Bluetooth users.

Guide contents

Status and honesty notes

License

Code: GPL-3.0, matching the Meshtastic Python library it builds on. Guide text and images in docs/: CC BY-SA 4.0. Contributions are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.

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