Comment by rtkwe

The meshtastic coverage might be much better in your area than it looks on Meshmap too. It relies on being connected to the main MQTT [0] server to get placed there and lots of people don't do that because the chatter there can be spammy and irrelevant to you locally. There are many city or state specific MQTT meshes that are far more popular. For example NCMesh [1] has way better coverage in NC, though most contacts still happen over MQTT instead of via RF, compared to the same area on Meshmap.

So long as you're using the standard long fast and 0/20 frequency slot you'll still have your messages passed via NCMesh nodes even if you're using the broader US Mesh as your MQTT server.

[0] MQTT here simply tunnels the messages over the internet so you get placed in a broader chat room and pseudomesh than you could reach through RF.

[1] https://ncmesh.net/learn/#coverage