Antenna and Signal Range Factors

What determines your repeater's range

Several factors interact to determine how far your repeater can reach. Understanding them helps you make better placement and hardware decisions.

Antenna height and line-of-sight (most important)

This is the dominant factor by a wide margin. Higher placement gives more line-of-sight coverage. Even a few meters of additional height can meaningfully extend coverage. Use terrain analysis tools to identify locations with the best natural line-of-sight before committing to a deployment.

Antenna type and gain

Omnidirectional antennas

Standard for general-purpose repeaters. Higher gain concentrates the signal horizontally, increasing range but reducing coverage of areas directly below. For most repeater deployments, 3–6 dBi omnidirectional antennas provide a good balance.

Directional antennas (Yagi)

Best for linking two specific points across a long distance. Directional antennas can achieve dramatically longer range in one direction but provide no coverage off-axis. Useful for point-to-point relay links, not general area coverage.

Antenna and cable quality

Upgrading from a stock antenna to a quality external antenna is often one of the highest-return improvements available. Use short, low-loss coaxial cable (LMR-200 or LMR-400) between the radio and antenna. Long cable runs with cheap coax can negate antenna gain improvements.

LoRa modem settings

Meshtastic provides preset modem configurations that trade range for speed:

• LongFast (default) — good balance of range and throughput for most networks
• LongSlow / Very Long Slow — maximum range at the cost of much lower throughput. All nodes on a given channel must use the same preset to communicate.

Do not change the modem preset unless all other nodes you want to communicate with are also changing to match.

Transmit power

More transmit power increases range up to the legal limit. In the US, FCC Part 15 rules allow up to 1W (30 dBm) conducted power and 4W (36 dBm) effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP). If you use a high-gain antenna, you may need to reduce conducted power to stay within the EIRP limit. Meshtastic's default settings are compliant, but custom high-gain antenna setups require calculation.

Interference

Other devices operating in the 902–928 MHz ISM band can reduce effective range. If you suspect interference, try changing the channel frequency within the band and comparing performance.