Improving TTN coverage in Amersfoort, NL - kick-off meeting on July 4th

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Hi all,

TL;DR: I’m organizing a meetup about TTN coverage in Amersfoort. If you’re from the area and are interested in improving the coverage, in helping maintain some gateways, or are just interested, drop by!

I’m involved with the Meet je stad! project, which has been using TTN to collect weather data throughout the city of Amersfoort (initially - we now have spin-off projects all over the world). When we started, we put up a number of gateways to get coverage around the city, which worked pretty well. Due to various circumstances, not all of those gateways are running (reliably) anymore, so there are now some blind spots in the city. Fortunately a lot of others have put up their own gateways, which helps, but they do not seem to be so high up, so their range is limited.

So: I would like to see if we can improve the coverage of the city again. This means getting the existing gateways back online, making them more reliable or improving their range, but also investigate where our coverage is lacking and then look for new places to put up gateways (we have some funding available for hardware).

Because these things are more fun to do together, I’m organizing a meetup on July 4th. I don’t have a fixed agenda, but I can probably tell a bit about the Meet Je Stad! project, about the gateways we currently have, how we have set them up and how we might improve them. And then collect some ideas and maybe make a concrete plan on what to do.

If you’re interested in helping out, are already running a gateway in the area, or are just interested in learning more, feel free to drop by. It is helpful if you let me know in advance (here, or by private message) if you plan to attend the meeting, but if you’re not sure yet, also feel free to drop by.

The meeting will be held on Tuesday July 4th, 20:00 (I’ll be there from 19:45) in “De War”, Heiligenbergerweg 34, Amersfoort. Coming by foot or by bike is recommended, if you come by car, easiest is to park in Garage De Beestenmarkt (our neighbourhood is permit-only parking). See also: De WAR Amersfoort

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@matthijskooijman, if you haven’t already, meet @Ichthus_College_Info aka Steven who has just launched https://www.meetjeleefomgeving.nl in Veenendaal

He’s working on improving coverage as well as the actual monitoring devices so there may be some collaboration to be had.

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Hey @matthijskooijman (and thanks for the introduction @descartes)

As Nick pointed out, I am the lucky (?) owner of the project Meet je Leefomgeving (MJLO) - very similar in name and execution to Meet je Stad! Main difference being that MJLO is developed to be used by students from colleges (in Veenendaal), and comprises an extended range of sensors.

While Amersfoort and Veenendaal are just too far apart to do anything about coverage, we’ll probably have some common interests and ideas to discuss.
I may be able to take the public transport to Amersfoort on July 4th - no guarantees yet that I’ll be there, but I’ll write it down.

I will also send this meeting invitation to the main LoRa lead of “Waterschap Vallei en Veluwe”, the water authority of Amersfoort and Veenendaal among others. They are looking into (and testing) LoRaWAN enabled water sensors which require much less maintenance compared to their current sensors.

Groet, Steven

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Wot, LoRa isn’t long range??

I was thinking sharing ideas on getting coverage - and if there’s surplus hardware, that as well - but it’s your bailiwick so I’ll leave you to it.

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Cool, sounds like there will be similarities indeed. Would be nice to talk and exchange experiences.

Nice if you could attend. If you’d like to get into contact before that, we have a Element/matrix channel where a lot of discussion happens, and every 21st (so that’s tomorrow), we have an online meeting in the evening for anyone involved or interested. See our website for details.

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@matthijskooijman I have put it om my calendar to attend.

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Unfortunately I’m busy tonight, so I won’t attend the online meeting. But quite sure I’ll be present in Amersfoort :smiley:

My contact at the water authority is unable to come but will likely send another person that’s investigating LoRa as well

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I think the Waterschap Vallei en Veluwe is actually involved in our project already, btw. I think our contact there is called Dimitri, but I’m not entirely sure. But always good to make more contacts :slight_smile:

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Mine is Marinus, but maybe he’s tipping Dimitri :sweat_smile: we’ll see…

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We had a nice and productive meeting last night, thanks to everyone who attended. We have exchanged a lot of ideas and actions, and made plans to better visualize the current coverage and already improve coverage by adding or fixing some of the current gateways.

@Ichthus_College_Info If you want to learn more about our platform and project, maybe you could drop by in our Element/matrix channel? That’s where a lot of the discussion happens and there are lot of people that can tell you more and answer questions. The channel is at https://app.element.io/#/room/#meetjestad:matrix.org

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We will have a followup meeting on gateway coverage next thursday, 21st of september. This will be part of the monthly Meetjestad meeting, so there will be a plenary part with some updates and discussion about Meetjestad in general, followed by some parallel sessions in various working groups, of which gateway coverage is one.

The meeting will be held on Thursday September 21st,19:30 in “De War”, Heiligenbergerweg 34, Amersfoort. Coming by foot or by bike is recommended, if you come by car, easiest is to park in Garage De Beestenmarkt (our neighbourhood is permit-only parking). See also: De WAR Amersfoort

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Really? Thought you guys liked a party!

https://www.thethingsconference.com/presentation-details/thursday-night-party-the-things-conference/r/recoQi2rrcmkUVPeR

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A little update: We’ve been improving the coverage in Amersfoort - a lot of our gateways are revived (last one will be put back up tonight) and we have three new gateways planned (plus one in Leusden). So coverage is again quite nice (except for Amersfoort Vathorst, which still barely has any coverage at all (but two of our planned gateways should improve that).

In the meanwhile we’ve also started holding two-weekly meetings for Meet je stad where we work on sensors, gateways and other stuff (“knutselavondjes”). These are on thursdaynight in the even weeks (e.g. next is tonight), starting at 19:30 in De War (see above). If you are interested in talking LoRa, feel free to drop by! Also, every 21st of the month we have a bit bigger meeting covering also the less technical aspects of the Meet je stad project.

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Hi Matthijs
Why not try to place gateways in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe tower? Did you discuss that with the municipality? I think they are the owner of the tower.
Yesterday I placed a gateway on the ENKA tower in Ede :slightly_smiling_face:
Marinus van Dijk

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We have half-seriously discussed this, but did not really take steps to figure out if this would be possible. I’m afraid that esthetical and lightning considerations might prevent an antenna on the outside, but since the top of the tower is fairly open, something inside might also be useful.

However, because our coverage is quite reasonable in the city center, I did not think it was the best place for an extra gateway, but I recently saw how much coverage the gateway in the provinciehuis in Utrecht (at 80m or so I think) has, which suggests that that extra height might actually be worthwhile. So I might indeed bring this up again.

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@stevencellist has some LW mapping devices …

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One of which hit 30km yesterday to the Rabobank gateway in Utrecht at SF7 from within a car, definitely my personal record!

Good to see @WaterschapValleiEnVe, welcome to the forum Marinus :wink:

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Height is everything for Lora gateways.
If you like, we can give it a try. I have contacts in the municipal organisation, I’ll see how far we come!
Maybe we need 3 gateways in that tower, but we can start with one.
About esthetical: on that height and painted with the right colour an antenna will not be visible from ground. In Harderwijk we have a similar situation, and even if you know the location of the antenna, it’s hard to see it