Off-grid festival communication
Pair a Meshtastic LoRa radio with Bass Compass and your crew chat, locations and meetup pins keep moving when the festival's cell network doesn't. No radio? Everything still works over the internet.
Radio features are free on iPhone and Android.
The problem
Tens of thousands of phones share a handful of cell towers. Messages stall, shared locations go stale, and plans fall apart right when your crew splits up for different sets. Meshtastic radios talk to each other directly over long-range LoRa, so they don't need the cell network at all.
How it works
Over the radio
Short messages, replies, edits and deletions travel between Bass Compass users in radio range, in group chats and direct messages. Long messages arrive as a notice and fill in once the sender is back online.
A connected radio shares your position on your crew's channel, so friends appear on the mesh map even when nobody has data.
Drop a pin for the totem or your camp and send it over radio. Save a GPS copy to the chat for later.
Pick a crew member on the map and get directions to their radio's last reported position.
New radio messages show as notifications on your phone, with no internet or push service involved.
A crew member with both a radio and internet can relay between friends on radio and friends online, when both people allow it.
Each crew chat gets its own Meshtastic channel with a random 256-bit key. Other radios at the festival can relay your packets but can't read them.
Sharing your location over the internet is off until you turn it on, and you choose whether it reaches your event chats only or your friends too. When a radio is connected, the app tells you who on its channel can see your position.
Meshtastic is an open-source project that turns inexpensive LoRa radios into an off-grid mesh network for short text messages and GPS positions. Radios relay each other's packets, so coverage grows with every radio nearby. Learn more at meshtastic.org.
To send and receive over LoRa, yes: each person needs a paired radio. Friends without one still get your messages over the internet when they have signal, and a crew member with both a radio and internet can relay between the two if both people allow it.
It depends on terrain, antennas and how crowded the site is. Expect a few hundred meters in a dense crowd and much more with a clear line of sight. Radios in your crew relay for each other, which extends the range.
Each crew chat gets its own Meshtastic channel with a random 256-bit key. Other radios can relay your packets but can't read them without that key.
Meshtastic radios use license-free ISM bands, such as 915 MHz in the US and 868 MHz in Europe. Set your radio to the region you're in and follow local rules.
No. Radio features in Bass Compass are free. You only need the radio hardware.
Bass Compass radio chat is not an emergency service. In an emergency, find festival staff, medical or security.
Download Bass Compass free, pair your radio and head out.
Bass Compass