@rayslava

And here in Tokyo we're struggling with the process kick-start
Like we have several enthusiasts but it's definitely not enough to cover an appropriate space, it's a shame for a 40 million city to have 5 nodes

So... you basically need just two things:

• Create a local chat
• Organize cellular shutdown all over the city multiple times

Now, jokes aside...

I think it was almost the same for me. For a long time there was almost nobody. Then we were talking to our friends, then they were talking about it with their friends...
Big help was the fact that we had cellular shutdowns. Also several local medias (i.e. 1, 2) in different cities covered Meshtastic. Then one of popular Russian popular science content creators covered it in one of his videos on YouTube which were watched 1.7M times already.
So Meshtastic population in our area started to grow.

I think one of the largest boosts was that a local group chat was created in Telegram and announced in Telegram Russia group chat, so people from my city and it's outskirts started to gather in a single place.

So I joined it too and wrote a bunch of "Quick Start Guide" posts like:

• Comprehensive list of settings one should set on their node to participate
  • MQTT was added here too (see below)
• Links to resources with useful information like a wiki localized into Russian, web client, web flasher, etc.
  • It's sad, but even in 2026 not all people are ready to read the docs in English
• A list of recommended nodes for people who don't want to get too deep into docs before trying. Basically it was:
  • For those who want buy-and-go:
    • SenseCAP T1000-E
    • Heltec MeshPocket
  • For those who wanted to build themselves without soldering (or almost no soldering):
    • Heltec T114
    • Heltec E213
    • Heltec V4 (it was V3 initially, but we discovered some problems with it, so I switched recommendation to V4)
  • For those who want a bit more things to do:
    • Different RAK base board like WisBlock Starter Kit
    • Different SeedStudio devices lilke XIAO LoRa KIT
  • For those who want to make their board themselves:
    • FakeTec (V4+)
  • Also a small list of non-recommended nodes like:
    • T-Beam (especially old one on old Semtech chip)
    • T-Deck which is a nice toy, but rather unstable and too expensive for easy start
    • Heltec Wireless Paper which may look nice, but it's board is designed somewhat poorly, so you'll have problems if you want to put it into a case to make a daily driver node
• A list of recommended external antennas which I personally bought, measured and tested on my nodes
  • Take a note that there are only European 868 MHz band antennas only, so they may be completely useless to you. But if you're going to make a list of antennas for your region, contributions are very welcome!
    • Antennas market is a mess. Most of what I could buy on marketplaces were complete shit. So having a go-to list was vital for local community.
    • I'm not sure what frequencies are available for you, but we found two manufacturers who were making mostly decent antennas: EByte and Gizont. First is a big manufacturer of LoRa and other hardware, so they know their stuff well. Second is somewhat decent company whose antennas was mostly fine. Not ideal, but good enough to recommend to new users.
      • Meshtastic site says that your frequency is 925.675. So you're somewhat more in luck than us since most of high frequency nodes come with ~915-920 MHz antennas which should work well enough for you mostly. But finding well-tuned antennas for your region could be beneficial too.
  • To make such measurements a lists you may need something like NanoVNA. Which is an open-source and open-hardware network analyzer device. This device has multiple generations and form-factors. But NanoVNA-H4 is mostly a cheap and safe choice for typical Meshtastic needs. It's not too old and not too expensive. You won't need a large dynamic range to measure LoRa antennas. But if you want to work with 5GHz or 6GHz Wi-Fi antennas too or need high precision for other purposes, you may need a newer version. Here's a comparison table I've got from ChatGPT about generations and variants.
    • Just don't forget to calibrate it for each frequency range you're going to measure and save those calibrations as presets so you may simply load them later to avoid re-calibration. Usually cheap kits come with 3 connectors: OPEN, SHORT, LOAD (50 Ohm cap). Doing SOL (Open->Short->Load) calibration is enough for simple usage on S11 port. For example to get SWR and Smith's chart for your antenna.
• A list of links to parts for buildilng your own nodes
  • nodes
  • antennas
  • batteries
  • wires
  • connectors
  • cases
  • pigtails
  • etc
• Some other less relevant posts

I asked local chat admin to pin them which he did, so new users were able to see them when they join.

I also set up an MQTT server for local community so we could link districts which are out of reach by radio from each other.
When community is thin, it's important to let them connect to each other even if they can't reach directly. So it was a good help. Of course, I've added MQTT settings to the "Quick Start Settings" post, so each new member with Wi-Fi-enabled node could connect their neighborhood to the mesh.

Then I recorded a podcast episode which covers everything that posts above covered and a lot more giving practical advices and sharing experience. If you need my plan for the podcast, you can find it here (you'll need to use translation though). But you may find some useful links and structure there.

Currently I'm vibe-coding a cross-platform desktop Meshtastic client app which could be used for stationary home and other types of nodes.

So for me it was basically about actively sharing experience, helping and creating content.

And AFAIU you've already got quite a mesh all over the Arkhangelsk, so can you provide some advice about starting the community?

Yeah, I'm glad that over a year our city started looking like this (see attachment image) instead of an empty map.

And also do you have some info on hardware in English?

Ah well. For that I'd recommend to look at Meshtastic Wiki. It is a good start for you.
But for newcomers, I'd suggest doing what I did and writing step-by-step guides and curated lists of easy-to-start hardware options. So new users wont' buy unsupported or glitchy boards, or ones working on a wrong frequency, et cetera.

I think your experience might be very useful here

Not sure about that, but if it helps, then I'm glad.

UPD: before re-using my device lists or antenna recommendations, please verify that they're are either compatible with your frequencies too or have versions for your region.

@globalc

#Meshtastic #Arkhangelsk #popularization #experience #social #people #Telegram #community