Since today, a message with the following wording has been circulating on several MeshCore channels:
ÖSTERREICH - ACHTUNG ⚠ Wir stellen um auf Spreading Faktor (SF)7 und Kodierungsrate (CR)5 - Frequenz 869.618Mhz u. Bandbreite 62.5Khz bleiben!
(In English: "AUSTRIA - ATTENTION ⚠ We are switching to spreading factor (SF) 7 and coding rate (CR) 5 - frequency 869.618 MHz and bandwidth 62.5 kHz stay the same!")
Our admins have received a large number of questions about it, some of them angry: are we the ones sending this message and spamming the channels with it? The answer is clear: No.
This message did not come from meshcore.at
Neither meshcore.at nor any of the people who run this site wrote or distributed this message. According to the packet trace, it entered the network in Lower Austria. We do not know who is behind it.
The fact that the sender is shown as "MeshCore" says nothing about where it came from. Anyone can freely choose the display name of their node, and MeshCore does not verify that a sender is who they claim to be. An official-sounding name is therefore no proof of an official message.
We explicitly distance ourselves from this message, from its content and from the way it is being spread.Our recommendation is unchanged
meshcore.at is not an authority, and we do not dictate to anyone which settings are right. What we publish is a recommendation, agreed together with people from several federal states, so that as many nodes across Austria as possible can hear each other. It still reads:
- Frequency: 869.618 MHz
- Bandwidth: 62.5 kHz
- Spreading factor: SF8
- Coding rate: CR8
The frequency and bandwidth in the message match this recommendation. The switch to SF7 and CR5, however, did not come from us and is not part of our recommendation.
If you want to switch: please coordinate
If individual groups, regions or federal states decide to use different settings, that is entirely their call. One thing is worth knowing, though: LoRa devices using different spreading factors cannot hear each other. A node on SF7 is cut off from all neighbours on SF8, and a switched repeater takes every node that relies on it along with it.
A switch therefore only works if everyone sharing a local network agrees on it beforehand, ideally together with the repeater operators in the area. An anonymous message telling individual users to switch tends to cause the opposite: some switch, others do not, and the network falls apart.
Our request
- Please do not forward the message. Even well-meant warnings that quote the original text help it spread. Feel free to link to this article instead.
- Please do not reply in the mesh. Every reply uses airtime on the shared radio channel, which is a limited resource.
- If you switched because of the message and now cannot reach anyone: the values above will get you back.