The towns
Kasson and Mantorville sit next to each other in Dodge County, in southeast Minnesota, west of Rochester. Together they’re home to several thousand people, on farmland with long views and wide-open winters. Like most small towns, they depend on a few cell towers and on the power grid for nearly every way residents reach each other.
The goal
KM Mesh began in November 2026 as a neighbor project: if a winter storm or a long outage knocked out power and cell service, could residents still check in, ask for help, and hear from each other?
What we built
- Seven solar relay sites on volunteer homes and a local gym, spread so every part of both towns is within reach of at least one.
- A hub that hears the whole network and runs a dashboard with a live map, battery levels, a message log and coverage reports.
- Automatic alerts for quiet sites, low batteries and “Need help” messages, plus National Weather Service warnings.
- Countertop consoles for households that want a simple device, and handheld radios for drivers and volunteers.
- A public site, kmmesh.org, with a coverage map and a sign-up page for new hosts.
The numbers
| Relay sites on the air | 7 |
|---|---|
| Days from first radio to all seven | 9 |
| Radios heard in the last 30 days | 74 |
| Solar battery levels in November | 92% and higher |
Figures from the KM Mesh hub, November 10, 2026.
What we learned
Recruit hosts first
A single community post found more host homes than we needed. People want to help; they need to know exactly what goes on their roof (a box the size of a book and a small panel) and that it costs them nothing.
Drive before you plan
Maps guess. A drive with test radios showed links we didn’t expect and dead spots behind buildings we did. Every Hometown Mesh project starts with that drive.
Watch every site
Relays rarely fail, but when one does, you want to know before an emergency. The hub flags a quiet site within hours, and because messages hop between sites, the rest of the network keeps working.
Keep it simple for residents
Phones work well for people who already use apps. Older residents preferred a console with two big buttons. Offering both doubled the number of households we could reach.
Bring this to your town
Hometown Mesh takes what we built here to other small towns, planned, installed and monitored for you. See how it works or see pricing.