Hiking, festivals and events with a LoRa mesh (UK)

This guide is for small groups on a walk, a campsite or a festival who want to keep in touch where phone signal is patchy or the network is busy. Read the emergency section first. The mesh section comes second for a reason.

UK emergency routes first

Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW) gives this advice on its "Stay safe" page, as read on 2026-10-29:

• Dial 999 or 112. Ask for "Police", then "Mountain Rescue".
• Do not change your position until contacted by the rescue team.
• Charge your phone before you set out.
• To signal with a whistle or torch: six good long blasts in a minute, stop for one minute, repeat.

This is the England and Wales procedure. We did not confirm the procedure for Scotland, so check the Scottish mountain rescue and Police Scotland guidance for walks there.

gov.uk says the call location is normally available automatically for 999 and 112 calls (page updated 1 April 2025). Ofcom says a 999 call connects through another mobile network if yours has no signal, but you need at least one network.

Text to 999

A text-to-999 service exists for people who cannot make a voice call. MREW says that if you have hearing or speech difficulties you can contact 999 by text, but only if you are registered beforehand. Register by texting "register" to 999 and following the instructions sent back. Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue's page describes the steps: read the reply, text back YES, wait for a confirmation message, after which a relay assistant passes messages between you and the 999 call handler. Every source we read frames the service for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired. We have not confirmed whether anyone else may register, so we do not tell the general public to. MREW's message to rescue services should include "Police", details of the incident and your location. Registration has to happen before an emergency.

Some official pages still link an "emergency SMS" website. Don't visit emergencysms.org.uk: the domain now redirects elsewhere, so we do not link it. Text REGISTER to 999 as described above.

Group setup

Do this at home, before you leave:

1. Same region and preset for everyone. Set the region to EU_868, the UK band (see flash Meshtastic). Never use a 915 MHz region.
2. Use a private channel with its own key for your group. Meshtastic's default channel key is public and message headers are visible, so a festival-wide public mesh means anyone can read default-key traffic. A private key keeps casual listeners out; do not call it "secure". See privacy and encryption.
3. Share node names and IDs before you leave, and write them down with phone numbers.
4. Agree check-in times so the group knows when to look at the screen.
5. Agree what to do if the mesh fails: a meeting point and time, and the 999 or 112 routes above.
6. Check whether you already have neighbours on a local mesh with find a local mesh, or learn with no kit through zero-hardware start.

Preset trade-offs

Meshtastic's documentation lists these presets. The link budget assumes 22 dBm transmit power and a 0 dB antenna (Meshtastic docs v2.8, read 2026-10-29).

Meshtastic does not publish a named "event" preset that we could find. This is our reasoning from the table, not Meshtastic advice: a higher data rate means less airtime per packet, and a higher link budget means more theoretical reach, so the trade is between the two. In the UK, EU_868 is limited to a 10% duty cycle, which Meshtastic calculates every minute over a rolling hour, and everyone in range shares the same airtime. A crowded campsite where many people use the same settings can therefore fill up. Everyone in your group must use the same preset. Try the link budget tool to compare settings. We give no range figures in kilometres because we have none that are sourced; line of sight and terrain decide it.

Power

A phone-style power bank may switch off a low-draw node; see Power for measured cut-off currents. We have no sourced battery-life figures, so test your set-up on a short walk before a long one. Lithium cells should not be charged below 0 °C (general guidance; see Power). Keep your phone charged for 999 as a priority over keeping the node running.

What not to rely on

• The mesh for rescue. It is not one.
• Guaranteed delivery. A message may not arrive if nobody is in radio reach.
• Range. Line of sight matters more than the radio.
• Free airtime at a crowded event, where many nodes share the same 10% duty-cycle budget.
• Any claim about how mobile networks behave at festivals. We have no source on it, so we make none.

Rules

On 868 MHz, no licence is needed within the Ofcom limits: 869.40 to 869.65 MHz allows 500 mW e.r.p. at a 10% duty cycle under IR 2030 v1.16 (published 7 April 2026). See UK radio rules at a glance. Meshtastic's ITU1_* regions are amateur allocations and may only be used with an amateur licence, unencrypted, with your call sign; see the UK amateur radio licence path. Festival organisers may have their own rules on personal radio equipment; we did not research them, so check with the organiser. For voice radios in a group, see Meshtastic vs PMR446 and CB.

FAQ

What should I do if I am injured on a hill in England or Wales?

Dial 999 or 112, ask for Police and then Mountain Rescue, and do not change position until the rescue team contacts you. A mesh message will not reach them.

Can Meshtastic call mountain rescue?

No. A LoRa node has no connection to the 999 service; only a person with phone signal can call, so someone in the group would need signal.

Should I register for text to 999 before a walk?

The service is intended for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired, and it requires registration beforehand. We have not confirmed whether other people may register.

Is a LoRa mesh legal to use at a UK festival?

The 868 MHz band is licence-exempt within Ofcom's limits, but we did not research festival site rules, so ask the organiser.