Hopping only in my own mesh?

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Hi there,
I am new to LoRa and meshtastic, but I really like all the stuff I’ve seen so far, so thanks to all devs for the great work!

I have a fundamental question about the setup of the mesh and hopping of messages:
Is hopping only used in my own mesh or do other LoRa devices also do the job in the background?

Let’s take the example of two devices in my mesh. If the device A is out of reach of device B, I understand that if I have a third device C in my mesh that is positioned between A and B, it will rebroadcast my message from A to B.

  1. But what happens, if device C is not part of my mesh? So for example another meshtastic user that is positioned between A and B. Will device C rebroadcast my message in the background?

  2. If this works this way, does C has to be a meshtastic device or will any LoRa device rebroadcast my message, for example if C is a TTN gateway?

Thanks in advance for help!

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  1. If C shares any common “channels” with A and B and has compatible radio settings, C will relay messages for you. LoRa can run at different frequencies (433 MHz, 868 MHz, 915 MHz), with different parameters (e.g. spreading factor, bandwidth, coding rate) and all of those settings need to be the same in order for two radio modems to communicate with each other. Meshtastic allows you to configure these settings, but a few commonly used presets are available. If C has different parameters and/or lacks any common channels with your nodes, it will not relay messages for you. A common configuration on Meshtastic is to enable the default channel along with a private channel so that messages can be relayed.
  2. It has to be a Meshtastic device. TTN (LoRaWAN) will not work to relay Meshtastic messages. Other LoRa devices not running Meshtastic will also not relay messages.
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