I have 3 permanent gateways within 3 miles of my house (the closest is <1 mile away) and yet unless I hang my own gateway in the attic, I won't even hear anyone, even from the bedroom window that's at the direction of the closest gw.

That means my awful, underpowered and suboptimally placed gw tries to take part in the network - I can't even make it repeat late (prefer other repeaters), so it jusg mostly adds to the noise (and increases power use).

That's with Meshtastic

With Meshcore? I was unable to hear even one transmission, and I love in the densely populated region.

This doesn't really work, maybe as an impromptu off the grid chat platform for a forest walk, provided no one strays too far. Even 0.5W transceivers work better.