Radio that works when the internet doesn't.
We are supporters and advocates of open mesh radio. We host repeater nodes around Pahrump and Nye County at our own expense, so hikers, hams, preppers and neighbours have a way to pass a message with no carrier, no subscription and no internet.
We're actually here. This is how you can tell.
Plenty of IT companies will service Nye County from three hundred miles away. We live here. Hosting mesh repeaters is not a product line and it isn't billable — it's infrastructure we put on the air because a town this spread out benefits from a communications path that doesn't depend on a tower, a data plan or a fibre cut.
Open hardware, open network
Anyone with a $30 radio can use our repeaters. No account, no permission, no data collected by us.
Emergency comms
When cell service drops — outage, fire, flood, a dead spot out past the highway — a mesh node still relays text. Low power, solar-friendly, no infrastructure behind it.
Giving back locally
The repeaters cost us hardware, power and roof space. They cost you nothing. That is the point — a community network is only useful if the coverage is already there when you need it.
RF is our day job too
Site surveys, antenna siting, link budgets, point-to-point backhaul. The skills that put a repeater on a hill are the same ones we bring to a business network.
Two repeaters on the air.
Look for these names in your node list. If you can see one, you can use it — nothing to configure beyond the default public channel. Note that Meshtastic and MeshCore do not talk to each other, so run the firmware that matches the node you want to reach.
Every radio is a repeater.
No node talks to the internet, and none of them is in charge. A message is handed from radio to radio until it reaches someone, taking whatever path happens to be open — MeshCore will carry it up to 64 hops deep if that is what it takes. Ours are two radios among many — sited high, powered properly and left on, which is all a repeater really is. The mesh works without them. It reaches further with them.
Below is one path a message might take. Dashed links are heard directly; the solid one is a hop between our two nodes.
On the air in an afternoon.
Mesh radio sends short text messages over long-range, low-power LoRa. Each radio relays for the next, so a handful of well-placed repeaters covers a valley. No licence required on 915 MHz.
Best effort, and we mean it.
These are community nodes, not a Catalyst service. Nobody is on call for them. Please plan accordingly.
Mesh is a hobbyist network with no guaranteed delivery, no guaranteed coverage and no monitoring. Do not rely on it for dispatch, medical or life-safety traffic. It is a useful backup, not a replacement for a phone, a radio licence or a plan.
Three ways to help the map fill in.
Host a node
Got a hill, a tall roof or a shop with a clear view? A repeater needs a few watts and a mast. We supply and maintain the hardware.
Run your own
Every extra radio makes the network better. Stuck on antennas, firmware or getting a link to hold? Ask — we like this stuff.
Mesh at your site
Ranch, yard, pit, warehouse, remote pump house — off-grid telemetry and comms where running fibre makes no sense. This one we do commercially.
Say hello on the mesh.
Ping a Catalyst node, or reach us the ordinary way and we'll tell you exactly what we're running and where.