Getting on the mesh
About half an hour, plus a map download. Best done at home on wifi.
Easiest option by far: bring the radio to camp and Blake will do all of this with you in about fifteen minutes. The one thing we can't do out there is buy you one, so order by Wednesday 19 August.
If you'd rather do it yourself, steps 1 and 6 are the nicest ones to get out of the way at home — they're just downloads.
Install the Meshtastic app
Flash the Burning Mesh 2026 firmware
Mandatory — including on a radio you just unboxed, because they ship with stock Meshtastic. Last year's firmware cannot join this year's mesh even if it worked perfectly last year.
Plug the radio into a computer with a data cable, open burn.meshtastic.org in Chrome or Firefox, pick your device and the 2.8.x firmware, flash, then factory reset.
If the device list comes up empty, that's a known glitch on their end rather than something you did — the page fetches its list live and it sometimes fails. Reload, or bring the radio to camp and Blake will sort it.
Pair your phone
Power the radio on, open the Meshtastic app, tap your radio when it appears. The Bluetooth PIN is 123456.
Pair from inside the app, not from your phone's Bluetooth settings. That's the single most common mistake and it produces a radio that looks connected but isn't. If you already paired from Settings, choose Forget This Device there and start again from the app.
On Android, say yes to the location permission. Decline it and the scan list stays empty forever with no explanation.
Check the radio settings
Settings → LoRa
- Region
- United States
- Preset
- Short Turbo
- Frequency slot
- 33
If any one is wrong you are silently off the mesh: the radio looks normal, lets you type, and sends nothing. Don't change these or any other frequency setting — Burning Mesh locks the event configuration on purpose.
Then open Settings → User and set your long name and a short name of up to four characters.
Join the camp channel
Scan the Fauxliage QR — on the channel page or your pocket card. Your radio won't reboot; this only adds a channel.
The channel page asks you to sign in — it carries the camp key, so it is the one step here that is not public. The pocket card has the same QR and needs nothing.
On iPhone use the Camera app, not Meshtastic, and tap the banner — it must say Meshtastic. If it says Safari or shows a web address, step 1 didn't finish properly.
On Android use Meshtastic → Settings → Channels → Scan QR Code.
You should end up with Everyone on channel 0 and Fauxliage on channel 1. Leave Everyone alone — direct messages stop working without it.
Download the offline maps
A map with no labels is close to useless out there, and the tiles are a large download that has to happen on wifi.
Android: Map tab → map style → Manage Custom Tile Sources → Add Local MBTiles File.
iPhone: search the map for “Black Rock City — Lovelock, NV”, enable Offline Tiles, then add the 2026 overlays under Map Options → Map Overlays → Upload Map Data.
Prove it works
Send a message and have someone confirm they received it. This is the only check that means anything — everything else can pass on a radio that doesn't transmit.
Save this guide to your phone
Saving for offline…
Add this to your home screen. On iPhone open it in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android use Install from the browser menu. A bookmark isn't enough — iOS wipes a bookmarked site's saved pages after about a week, and the burn runs longer than that.
Out there
Range, battery and patience — the handful of habits that decide whether the radio is useful in the desert — live on one page, along with the norms for a shared mesh.