LANCE owns the radio connection directly: Bluetooth on every edition, or USB serial on Pro and Enterprise. There's no companion radio app in the loop — and because LANCE configures the radio for you, getting connected is a zero-config step. Keep radio ownership on the LANCE link; don't let another app hold the same device.
On connect, LANCE checks the attached radio against your selected operating mode and writes the effective channel template if it doesn't match. The link stays yellow while it configures and verifies, and only turns green after the radio reads back the expected configuration.
Positions, markers, shapes and range rings created in ATAK are carried across the mesh and reconstructed as native ATAK objects on every connected client — so the far side sees real map data, not a foreign overlay.
The mesh is the network. LANCE runs fully off-grid with no internet, LTE, Wi-Fi or TAK server. Where a server is available, reconstructed positions can optionally be relayed to it — a light scope on Pro, full organizational scope on Enterprise.