I’m in a learning/experiment phase with LoraWAN and TTN. I have a Adafruit Lora bonnet for testing and was hoping to connect to a nearby gateway. According to the TTN map there are two indoor and one outdoor gateway within 2-3km of my location (just north of Cambridge, UK).
Do I have any chance of connecting to these gateways from indoors? I’m testing with a simple 34.5 wire antenna soldered to the board.
Should I just get my own gateway? I’ve read about the The Things Indoor Gateway but seen some references that is it not compatible with V3.
You might want to re-read these references as that’s not accurate - it is likely that it said that the TTIG wasn’t able to be registered on v3 at the time it was written, with various levels of panic by the poster depending on if they’d read the previous posts that explained what was going on for migrating the TTIGs to v3. If you scroll down the list of topics you’ll see lots of them about registering the TTIG on v3
Or search, please please use search, antenna length I searched for today to make a wire one that I’d cut short by a couple of mm and found answers:
Device development is a trillion times easier if you have access to the gateway console or even better, the gateway itself.
As fetching as the idea is that Adafruit do bonnets, which actual product do you have and what software are you using to create your device?
The adafruit product is “hat” for a Raspberry pi. I’m starting off with the TinyLora python library which I’m aware is not fully compatible (I’ve read the thread on this). If I can get basic stuff to work I can look at the code and maybe fix it. But right now, I have too many variables - is the thing working, is the library working, is my configuration correct, am I in range of anywhere? So I’m trying to reduce the uncertainty a bit.
I’d read about antenna lengths for 868 but in my ignorance assumed that longer multiples of 1/4 would be better.
Which exact product - LoRaWAN is complex enough without us having to second guess the specs, products evolve and change and there may be several of them.
We don’t recommend LoRaWAN on a Pi that drives the radio directly due to the timing constraints.
OK, that would be a feat, given the complexity of the current requirements and the very basic nature of that library - it knows enough to order a burger & a beer in a foreign country, currently the code base needs to be able to get by with business transactions.
As TinyLora is not recommended, nor is the base device (Pi), there is going to be limited expertise or enthusiasm for assistance.
You would be much much better served looking at the recommendations for devices we can help with because some of them are really easy to get going, particularly if you are sure you are in range or even better, have a gateway.
The Adafruit device has a RFM95W on board. It worked with V2 I believe. I understand it is no longer supported propertly. I’ll rethink my approach but for now would just like some guidance as to the range I can expect. Even with a supported device, am I likely to be able to reach gateways 2-3km distant in a suburban environment?
It hugely depends on the type and density of buildings between you and the gateway. The ‘official’ line from the vendor is to expect hundreds of meters. Multiple kilometers is possible (I have seen it happen) but unlikely.
Where did you read that? If you pare down your Raspbian aka use Lite and stop all unnecessary processes and use LMIC I’d anticipate some modicum of success. It’s when people try to run a desktop version & watch YouTube videos whilst typing on Messenger that the timing goes seriously wrong.
As Jac says, it depends, I’d say probably not in a suburban environment with a piece of wire as an antenna on your ‘honnet’ unless you are in a flat half-a-dozen floors up on the balcony (ie outside) facing a gateway that has an external antenna that you could see if you had a really good telescope - aka line of sight.
But if you are trying an OTAA join, it will have to be able to receive as much as send.
As an anti-spam measure we ask new users to spend some time reading and studying various threads and posts before we grant new posting rights. Registration for 30 mins and 15 mins reading or lingering doesnt cut it i’m afraid… spend time reading and absorbing and then you will have the access grated when you are ready to post…
You can ask questions in existing threads sooner than start new ones (as here) so use search and find similar issues to that you wish to raise and you can post sooner, when done in context - do not hijack unrelated threads - we take a dim view of that
…after nearly 6 years of operation a careful Forum search (top right next to your user icon) will turn up something on ‘most’ topics on TTN Forum
