🏝️ Vashon's Mesh Community
We're a loose crew of islanders — radio nerds, software folks, emergency preparedness volunteers, and curious neighbors — building something new together: a community mesh network that belongs to everyone and costs almost nothing to run. No cell towers, no subscriptions, no permission needed.
Our first two gatherings (January & February 2026) pulled in 15–22 islanders with surprisingly little overlap, which tells us this idea has legs. Below are the six threads we're currently pulling on.
Learn Together
Hands-on workshops, open-agenda meetings, and shared curiosity. Half the fun is figuring this out in public with people who don't already know the answer. No experience required — show up, ask questions, and leave knowing more than you did.
Get Started Guide →Island-Wide Coverage
Strategically placed repeaters on hilltops, water towers, and fire stations can blanket Vashon & Maury with LoRa coverage. We're mapping ideal locations and recruiting site hosts. A handful of well-placed nodes changes everything.
About Repeaters →Software Workgroups
MeshCore speaks serial — a Raspberry Pi next to a radio can do anything: BBS boards, MQTT bridges, bots, TAK integration, mapping tools. About half the folks at our second meeting were software people. Projects are already underway.
Member Projects →Community & Schools
Vashon's schools and community organizations — water districts, fire departments, the food bank — are natural infrastructure partners. A mesh that includes institutional nodes is more robust and serves more people. Early conversations are open.
Get Involved →Emergency Communications
Island isolation makes EmComm matter more here than most places. CERT neighborhood groups, VashonBePrepared.org, and W7VMI's ACS team are natural partners for a resilient, internet-independent communication layer when it counts most.
EmComm Planning →Community-Directed Efforts
Our meetings surface ideas faster than we can act on them — repeater workgroups, MQTT experiments, sensor networks, TAK integration. The agenda is community-written. The third meeting is TBD. Show up and have a say.
Meeting Notes →Where Things Stand
We have active repeaters up and a growing number of islanders running Companion radios daily. The network is visible on the live node map ↗. MeshCore is early-stage firmware — rough edges exist — but that's also why it's a great time to get involved and help shape its direction.
We're informally affiliated with W7VMI (the Vashon-Maury Island Radio Club's ACS team) and coordinate with PugetMesh ↗ for regional coverage. No dues, no officers, no drama — just islanders figuring out useful technology together.