# Help me understand how to set up an RNode repeater

_Help · started by CarstenBoll on Sat, May 23, 2026 5:58 AM_

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## Original post

**CarstenBoll** · Sat, May 23, 2026 5:58 AM

Maybe I am thinking about this a little too much in Meshtastic/Meshcore terms, but I have various devices using RNS over Lora - a cyberdeck, a ratdeck, etc. Now I'd like to put up a solar powered RNode-based repeater station with an antenna to give me better range - just like for MeshCore, right?

So I bought a solar powered device:

* It's based on a Heltec v4
* It's not supposed to be connected to anything, though it would be nice to be able to remotely upgrade it to new firmware
* It's mean to just site there and relay traffic
* It has both a LoRa antenna and a wifi-antenna

How would you configure it?

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## Reply 1

**RandomPeer** · Sat, May 23, 2026 6:22 AM

There is a guide on this forum with exactly this. I'm on reticulum so i can't copy the link correctly, but you can find it here: Forum  /  Build Guides  /  How to install and test the RTNode firmware

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## Reply 2

**welo** · Sat, May 23, 2026 7:08 AM

RNodes on their own cannot be used as a repeater. They must be connected to a host computer running reticulum which then can relay traffic through all their interfaces (be it back through lora, the computer's backbone interfaces or whatever), since it has wifi you can have the Rnode have a static ip address which you can then connect to by any device you have, but to be a good transport node whatever device you have relaying the traffic would have to be on all the time, though even a very old computer or raspberry pi (as long as it could run some flavor of linux) would do the trick.

Alternatively you can follow this forum post as the guy above mentioned https://directory.rns.recipes/forum/build-guides/how-to-install-and-test-the-rtnode-firmware which then allows the heltec v4 to run by itself without needing any host computer

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## Reply 3

**Anonymous** · Sat, May 23, 2026 8:35 AM

There is also the microReticulum Firmware, which works great. Just follow the "Installation" and "Enabling Transport Mode" instructions in the readme.
https://github.com/attermann/microReticulum_Firmware

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## Reply 4

**Anonymous** · Sat, May 23, 2026 10:15 AM

**welo** wrote:
> RNodes on their own cannot be used as a repeater. They must be connected to a host computer running reticulum which then can relay traffic through all their interfaces (be it back through lora, the computer's backbone interfaces or whatever), since it has wifi you can have the Rnode have a static ip address which you can then connect to by any device you have, but to be a good transport node whatever device you have relaying the traffic would have to be on all the time, though even a very old computer or raspberry pi (as long as it could run some flavor of linux) would do the trick.
> 
> Alternatively you can follow this forum post as the guy above mentioned https://directory.rns.recipes/forum/build-guides/how-to-install-and-test-the-rtnode-firmware which then allows the heltec v4 to run by itself without needing any host computer

OK, good to know - that's the part I was missing, I assumed it was a combination of configuration options on the RNode software I had to get working. I will look into using microReticulum, then - thanks!

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