A freshly flashed node with the region set hears nothing. Or a node that works fine at home goes to an event, switches to the event's settings, and still lists familiar names that won't answer.
Nothing is broken in either case. Your node is on different LoRa settings than the nodes you're trying to reach, and the fix is quick once you know where to look.
If your local Meshtastic network has grown beyond just a handful of nodes and you're starting to experience issues like delayed message delivery, network congestion, or inconsistent results, the problem might be your LoRa radio preset. Specifically, you may have outgrown the default preset: LongFast.
While LongFast is an excellent general-purpose preset for many users, it may not be the optimal choice for larger or denser meshes. In this post, we will explain why switching to higher bandwidth presets might significantly improve your network's performance.