FAQ
Questions worth answering
Including the ones with unflattering answers. If something here is out of date, the map is the authority, not this page.
Why is my area empty?
Because nobody has driven it with a receiver. MapMinter draws only what was measured, and there is no model filling in the gaps, so a blank area means "unmeasured", never "no coverage". Switch on the Unexplored layer and the map will outline the cells around your view that have nothing in them yet. Those are the ones worth a drive.
Why do you only measure the last hop?
Because that is the only thing a radio can measure. RSSI and SNR are properties of a received transmission, so they describe the link between your radio and whichever node transmitted the copy you received. A packet that travelled three hops carries no measurement of the first two. Attributing coverage to the original sender would be inventing data, so MapMinter attributes it to the last-hop transmitter and says so.
Is this Meshtastic?
No. MapMinter maps MeshCore networks. MeshCore and Meshtastic are different protocols on the same kind of LoRa hardware; a MapMinter collector paired to a MeshCore device will not hear a Meshtastic mesh, and vice versa.
What hardware do I need?
A LoRa board running MeshCore firmware that a phone can reach over Bluetooth LE, set to the same radio preset as the network you want to map, plus an Android phone. We do not sell hardware or recommend a particular shop. Buy what your local mesh already runs, so your measurements are comparable to everyone else's.
Do I have to keep the app open while driving?
No, if you grant background location: collection continues with the screen off, so an ordinary commute becomes a mapping run. Without that permission the operating system stops the app when it leaves the foreground, and nothing is recorded.
What exactly do you collect about me?
Signal metadata and position: the RSSI and SNR of each received packet, the radio settings it was received on, the position of your device at the moment of reception, and an identifier for your collector. Node names and node positions come from the adverts nodes broadcast about themselves. Message contents are never recorded. The privacy page lists every field, including the ones we would rather not have to explain.
Does $MESHR have any value?
No. It is a game point on a test network. It has no monetary value, is not for sale, cannot be bought, and nobody promises it will ever be worth anything. Anyone offering to sell it to you is defrauding you. The $MESHR page is the long version of this answer.
What happens when the testnet is reset?
Balances are carried across by snapshot. A test network can be reset or replaced, which is what a test network is for, and when that happens the state is recorded beforehand and restored on the network that follows, so the record of work already done is not thrown away. This is a promise about bookkeeping, not about value.
Can I run my own MapMinter?
That is the intent: MapMinter is built to be self-hosted, with no dependency on a hosted service and no secrets baked into the code, and the public map is one instance of it. The source is not published yet, so today this is a design commitment rather than something you can act on. We would rather say that than imply a repository you can clone.
Can somebody fake measurements?
People will try. Uploads are authenticated per collector, rate limited, and checked for plausibility before anything is aggregated or credited, and collectors can be moderated. We do not publish the details of those checks, because a public description of the thresholds is a manual for getting under them.
Why do two nodes show the same short identifier?
Because MeshCore path hashes collide: the identifier in a packet is short, and more than one node can transmit under the same one. The map never pretends otherwise. A node entry in the transmitter picker is one identified radio; a hash entry is everything heard under that hash, which may be several nodes plus traffic that could not be attributed to any of them. Names are unauthenticated broadcast text, so the identifier is always shown beside the name.
The map says my area is covered, but my radio cannot reach anything.
Three likely reasons, all honest ones. A cell's colour is the strongest signal ever heard in it, which is optimistic on purpose: it answers whether contact was possible at all. A cell can be kilometres across at low zoom, and the good measurement may have come from one corner of it. And a measurement can be old: check when the cell was last heard. Coverage changes when antennas, trees and buildings do.
Can I have my node or my measurements removed?
Yes, just ask. Node names and positions on the map come from adverts the nodes broadcast publicly, and measurements are attributed to the collector that made them; either can be taken down on request. The privacy page has the contact address.