imho the coverage of a gateway is independent from the gateway you use. It is much more important where you mount the antenna. In an urban environment the coverage with an internal antenna might be only a few 100m, with the antenna on the roof it can be several 10km. Additionally it is important where the node is and what antenna it uses.
Just install a gateway, mount a node in your car (with an external antenna), drive around and observe what’s going on using TTNmapper.
Thank you for your answer. So if I use an antenna like this one: https://www.robotshop.com/media/files/content/d/drt/pdf/lora---lorawan-glass-fiber-outdoor-antenna-915-mhz-datasheet.pdf
and I fix it on my roof I can expect to have a coverage of at least 5km? (I guess 10km is a maximum range…)
No you can’t. Or maybe you can. That depends on local circumstances and can not be predicted with any reasonable certainty.
If your antenna is at the bottom of a valley there is almost certainly no coverage in the next valley (even if just 4 km away). If you antenna is at the top of a hill coverage could even extend to nodes 50 km away if those are at the top of a hill as well (line of sight between the antennas).
In an urban environment line of sight is important, any buildings will deteriorate the signal, but RF noise is a significant factor as well. If I recall correctly for LoRaWAN within a city and an antenna outdoors the ‘official’ statement is max 3km, anything beyond that is bonus. With an indoor antenna it is 300m and more is also a bonus.
Hi kersing,
You are right relief is important and will have a big impact on coverage. My antenna will be at the cross on the following map
I should be able to have a good coverage, except south of the city with the mountain…
I confirm 300m, I tested that with an internal antenna closed to me
If the top of your house is at the same level or below the buildings surrounding your house coverage will be a few hundered meters. Even if your antenna is above surrounding building coverage for devices at ground level will be tens to hundreds of meters, depending on the building materials used for anything between the antennas of the node and the gateway.
Wow ok so I will not change a lot to have an external antenna.
It will change something. But what and how much you have to find out yourself.
There are just few gateways in Montreal and the coverage is very poor. I expected to have a couple of km with an external antenna, but it will be just a drop in ocean.
And I am using Z-wave in my house. Frequency is 908MHz, closed to 915MHz of Lora…
But many drops fill the ocean. The more gateways we install the better the coverage will become. In the moment I am on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. Someone installed a gateway here. I travel around and try to find out the coverage using TTNmapper.
Don’t worry about Z-wave. I have something similar in my house and they coexist without problems although using the same frequencies.
Yes that’s right. Well I will install an external antenna and if the results are not good I will convert my Lora network my domotic. sensors are not expansive!
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Did you bought an antenna? I am in Canada too, and I will buy this one
Not easy to find a ready made cable… And i guess it’s expensive this kind of cable?
Yes - I got that one. It was a significant improvement over the OEM gateway antenna - both improved device SNR/RSSI as well as maximum range. But then we upgraded to the 8dBi version, which is ~3x larger, and it has been a further improvement - especially if the node antenna is enlarged as well. A (claimed) 12dBi antenna is now on the way.
I’m sure the radio experts view these china antennae with skepticism, and know to be conscious of limits in RF emissions, but we believe this is yet within regulations and are quite happy to report these results.
8dBi working well on 915mhz. Longest range to date ~11km, on a hill
and 12dBi still to be tested
Thanks for your feedback. And which cable are you using? Where did you buy it?
so far just the cables included with the 3, 8 dBi units. Would be interesting to test further to find the best solution, but with the existing performance increase and dBi some cable losses right now are fine - already getting beyond line-of-sight over surrounding hills so don’t expect more.
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Take care with the cable ends - Dragino uses SMA, while Rak uses SMA-RP for antenna coupling (!?). Hence the cables are not inter-compatible.
Here in Germany we have several companies who manufacture the cable according to your needs. The price depends on the length and the quality of the cable.
BTW: don’t trust the antenna-gain if it was not measured by a competent laboratory. Rather often you see “Chinese dBi” and remember : gain is not everything
Thank you for the advice! I guess Rakwireless and Dragino are compagnies I can trust about dBi…