United Frequencies of Europe

2026-08-12 · Lew Palm

With Reticulum (and Leviculum, of course) we can build specialized, ad-hoc private mesh networks. We also build a public mesh for all, connecting strangers, building many-hop LoRa links over long distances, even connecting two cities. But there is one problem: there is no consensus about the radio settings. Everybody in Europe comes up with their own settings, and none of these devices can interoperate. This is also bad for beginners: You want to set up your first LoRa mesh node? Start researching which frequencies make sense. And then find out that the node next to you uses something else because they had somewhat different research results.

I think we should lower the bar for newbies. No one has to understand radio frequency settings to participate in the mesh. Let's have sane default settings that just work.

But how to do that; which settings should we use? There are arguments for this and against that and we could discuss forever. I took a look at who was successful with this defaultization, and it was the Netherlands. The Dutch scene agreed on a sane settings consensus, and now most nodes in the Netherlands can talk to each other. You can travel from Amsterdam to Ede with your LoRa device in your pocket, and it just connects to the stationary transport nodes there. The Netherlands also has the best general Reticulum radio coverage in Europe.

They chose a channel that does not collide with MeshCore's main European channel, and which is in general a well-working default:

[[The Typical Dutch Node]]

frequency = 869463000

bandwidth = 125000

spreadingfactor = 8

codingrate = 5

Some people may argue these settings are not perfect and they could be tweaked or optimized a little in this or that direction. Please don't.

I propose using the NL settings for all public Reticulum nodes in the European Union.

That's why I use these settings for my standalone Leviculum firmware. If you flash your device with Leviculum, you can just say yes to the defaults, and then you'll have this.