The ultimate issue here, is that someone new to the technology is facing a situation which would be an extremely challenging project even for someone very experienced with it.
OK, I see. Mea culpa. Let me rephrase: the biggest antenna legally possible in you region/country.
Thanks for correcting me @LoRaTracker !!!
Getting a lot of traffic down a single channel would cause significant duty cycle issues as well, especially since because you want long range and cannot (in most places) use a gain antenna, you would need to use a higher spreading factor, which makes for greater duty cycle issues.
Easy enough to design a solution that could work, a much greater challenge to make it legal.
@cslorabox fully agreed, but … everyone has been new to any technology at certain moment.
The project, if successful, will take much more time than previewed, consume much more money than expected and will not work 100% as planned, but again, isn’t it everyday reality in hi-tech? But if it’s a success, it will bring a lot to @HassinaMauritanie
@LoRaTracker again, I agree. It’s clear the solution has to be legal. But still, there are solutions: the frequency of measurements can be minimized, the size of packets too. At the end, the node can collect several measurements and compress them (some bytes can be saved). Everything heavily depends on the number of the nodes and sensors.
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The issue is that it’s substantially unclear if even a very experienced person would be able to get this to work.
On the surface they probably would not, which is why all sorts of non-standard non-LoRaWAN schemes are getting into the discussion.
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Indeed, and as ever, we await the OP, @HassinaMauritanie, to answer the following:
- How often do they need to transmit?
- How quickly do you need the data back at the office?
- Where is the office? ie rural or some distance from the are
plus one more, where exactly are these ponds?
As for level of complexity, it’s not a walk in the park, but my personal enthusiasm for helping people solves problems like this far outweighs the potential pitfalls identified early on.
I’m one of the more northern High Altitude Balloonists in the UK, when my monopole 6dBi antenna starts to lose a flight that’s drifting south but still way above the horizon, I switch the receiver over to a 5 element Yagi, point it roughly in the direction required, and carry on receiving. Even my old magmount antenna could hear 100+km. So if the OP cares to answer questions and tell us exactly where he is needing to deploy things, we can look at the terrain and consider if putting a gateway in the right place could actually do the job.
Hello everyone
I apologize for not responding to your comments in time.
The cause is that I had gone on a mission with a team inside the country, I connected using my mobile phone and the connection was very weak, I could not answer but I followed your answers.
And I preferred to wait until I bring you the complete information so that it is clearer for you.
In any case, thank you very much for your collaboration it is the first time that I trust a forum. With the help of your answers, I have understood many things.
I left to do a study of the lakes for which I wanted to set up the LoRaWAN infrastructure (level sensors and LoRaWAN gateways).
The lakes were very large and had depths of 5 to 6 m.
There was GSM coverage from telecommunications operators, mobile communications could be established but the Internet was weak. The lakes were still a few kilometers away from the villages where the offices were to be.
So I saw several types of level sensors on the thethingsnetwork.org page offered by the certified partner companies of the Things Network.
And I thought a lot about the Things Industry Outdoor Gateway as a solution for setting up the first test of this project.
What do you think and do you offer me components that you have already tested (level sensor and gateway) LoRaWAN?
Here are the coordinates of the first lake chosen for a test:
The data changes according to the rainy season:
The area in ha: 4275
Estimated water depth: 2 to 4 m
The width is estimated at 4 km
The length is estimated at 22 km
The distance from the lake to the village is 5 km.
For questions asked by @descartes:
What are the sensor devices going to sense?
The water level in the lake
How many of them?
Depending on the type of sensor or its capacity but I do not know how to define the number of sensors that we must need for such an area? How do I do this?
How often do they need to transmit?
I do not consider frequency a very important factor I think it is depending on what is adaptable to the context, the essential that the information is received.
How quickly do you need the data back at the office?
I don’t mean quickly but according to what is possible and adaptable to our context.
Where is the office? I.e. rural or some distance from the area
The office is in the village where the internet connection is stronger but the lake is a few kilometers from the village.
The information for the moment I want to receive it on the desktop computer using the Things Network LoRaWAN Server and afterwards I must be able to switch to Cayenne.
The question is:
What do you suggest to me for the implementation of a LoRaWAN solution for monitoring the water level and quantity of water in this lake?
thank you
@kersing @jerylcook @pshemek @LoRaTracker @cslorabox
Some of these answers are very vague but you should have some idea about them
Count the number of lakes!
On average, how far away from each village / office are they?
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, only when it rains, not at night?
Can you wait a minute, an hour, a half day, a day, a week to get a reading?
What do you do with the water level data - plan ahead, fill the lake up, divert water courses? How you use the data you collect defines context as well.
Can you give the geographical co-ordinates of the lake and the village so we can see what the radio line of sight might be please.
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Thank you for your reply
There are many lakes and even boreholes, but I wanted to set up for a single lake to see the feasibility of the solution with LoRaWAN.
If I do for a lot of lakes I also have to think about the LoRaWAN network server which must manage all these gateways and sensors and it is also to pay.
Of course I prefer to consult the information in real time and at any time. That is the purpose of this LoRa / LoRaWAN technology. Otherwise it’s not important.
I wanted to use a single sensor for a single lake but what type of this sensor can meet my need?
I suggest you these sensors
That I think effective
What do you think?
Coordinates:
Coordinates of the village: 17 ° 03 ′ 00 ″ north, 13 ° 55 ′ 00 ″ west
GPS coordinates of the lake: 17 ° 6 ‘0 "North (17.10 °) 13 ° 58’ 59" West (-13.98 °)
Altitude lake : 30-30 m
In fact the position of the lake is very close to the village it is at the entrance to the village.
The information is mainly used for planning ahead.
Count the number of lakes!
It’s a lot of lake in almost every village there is a lake
On average, how far away from each village / office are they?
In fact I wanted the monitoring of each lake to be separate from the other lakes.
I mean that for each village I consider a corresponding central lake monitoring office. So for each lake I must have a sensor, a footbridge and a reception desk to give in the village. That’s how I think because the lakes are very far from each other.
I Hope I answered well
thank you
You can make pretty much anything work as a one off project - but there is no point doing a feasibility project for a unit of one without knowing if it can be scaled.
Looking at the area for the co-ordinates and as you have plenty of solar power, it’s flat terrain and only 5km away from the village, it should be feasible with a directional antenna to get data from the lake to the village in this instance.
Once the data is available online, this is entirely feasible as long as you have internet - but it is not normal for a LoRaWAN device to be continuously transmitting.
As I previously lived in a village at 200m above sea level that was at risk of flooding and over the hill was the reservoir that supplied water to Birmingham that some summers you could see the bottom and some summer it was on overflow, I’m aware of the dynamics of large bodies of waters in the UK.
So, how often do you want the water level sensor to send a reading - hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, only when it rains, not at night?
Neither of those sensors are suitable - they are for tanks, not an open body of water!
How many villages then - 10, 100, 1000 - having some sense of scale of the project helps. Rather than finding a solution that is too big or too small - just a rough idea.
Yes, separate lakes being separately monitored - but are they mostly 1 to 5 km’s away from their village or are there many lakes that are 10km away from it’s village?
I’m not trying to sell you anything, I’m trying to un-cover the facts to help you design a solution - don’t read anything in to the questions or try to second guess what is being asked, just try and come up with a numerical or yes/no answer that feels right.
All that said, if you have one lake per village, even with two or three sensors, a LoRaWAN gateway may be overkill. Which is why you need to scope out the project in more detail - no point buying lots of LoRaWAN gateways if other solutions are more practical.
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every day.
very discouraged to hear this
Can you offer me sensors that can be adapted to my context?
there are many villages that have found lakes.
but we now wanted to study the case for 3 to 4 lakes each in a village.
each lake is a few kilometers from its corresponding village.
Thank you so much
I didn’t understand what you mean isn’t it well written?
Here is the information about villages, each of which has a lake.
these villages are in the same area called Kob but the distance between villages can be tens of kilometers.
lake 1: N 16 ° 33’30 ‘’ W 9 ° 36’50 ‘’
Area ha: 900
lake 2: N 15 ° 86’30 ‘’ W 9 ° 01’70 ‘’
area ha: 1500
lake 3: N 15 ° 50’80 ‘’ W 9 ° 81’70 ‘’
area ha: 4000
lake 4: N 15 ° 74’90 ‘’ W 9 ° 65’90 ‘’
area in ha: 1200
lake 5: N 15 ° 98’70 ‘’ W 9 ° 06’70 ‘’
area ha: 1000
lake 6: N 15 ° 69’70 ’’ W 9 ° 48’30 ’’
area ha: 500
what I think is to put a footbridge per village.
but I will provide information on the exact distance between the village to know if I can reduce the number of footbridges.
what do you think?
these are the Gps coordinates of Kob where there are all these villages and lakes:
Kob: N 15 ° 49 ′ W 9 ° 24 ′
Thank you
Please can you edit your post as it is almost unreadable - I think I can figure out what you are answering - there is the quote option " or you can put the original question in bold, in either case, put the question first, then the answer.
The latitude & longitudes have spaces in them that mean they don’t have to be edited for Google Maps to understand them:
15 ° 49 ′ 02 ″ north, 9 ° 24 ′ 39 ″ west → 15°49′02″N, 9°24′39″W
Not really, water level sensors for rivers & reservoirs are common enough.
I can address the other points once you’ve edited your post - it’s the pencil option at the bottom of your post.
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If you don’t have decent Internet connectivity (via a mobile provider or whatever) from possible gateway locations “in view” of the sensor locations, then a traditional LoRaWAN network like TTN probably isn’t going to work.
What you could do is get one set of a mobile-backhaul gateway and a few nodes and go try things in some locations.
But from the sound of it, you have the unfortunate combination of a very challenging geographic situation, and limited familiarity with the technology.
Until you have evidence that this idea could actually work, you’ll probably want to keep your investment in LoRaWAN hardware limited.
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we have the internet connection. only that maybe it is a little weak in certain areas.
Can’t I establish LoRaWAN coverage without needing an internet connection?
Will I be able to make an end-to-end LoRa or LoRaWAN communication and have the information without using the internet or the GSM? what do you think?
really this is what I want to do.
to test that even something and see the feasibility.
but how? what gateway and node can you offer me?
Perfectly.
for tech i read a lot and i think i’m improving but i wanted to try something practical to see what happens.
really you are right.
Thank you very much for your reply.
Not via TTN, and so not within the range of topics covered on this forum.
TTN fundamentally requires good low-latency Internet connectivity from the gateway.
There are gateways which include a miniature stand-alone LoRaWAN network server in the box, generally this is intended as “demo” but it could work on a small isolated network. Chirpstack, RAK, and Dragino all offer this (with Dragino make sure you are looking at actual 8 channel models)
But again those are not on topic here.
what gateway and node can you offer me?
Most flexibility and lowest cost would probably be wiring a LoRaWAN gateway card into a Raspberry Pi; it’s not a very good solution for something to actually leave in the field, but for a brief test it is flexible and gives you some options - which again, are mostly off topic here. You might look at Chirpstack’s Raspberry Pi card image, or try to see if you can actually connect it to TTN via a mobile data plan.
For a node, probably MCCI LMiC on an Adafruit feather. There are many choices, but most bring various challenges so something well supported is key.
To be clear, this is going to be an extremely challenging project, and most of what you need to figure out is not on topic for this forum.
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I would also add that Dragino also do a low cost open liquid body (vs tank) level sensor - the LDDS75 - I have been testing a couple with reasonable results, and in theory good for a liquid range ‘heave’ of ~30cm to 6m distance so if you lake levels move in that range may be a viable option. A search on the TTN Marketplace will show you others (DecentLabs etc.)
Also if operating remote with poor internet backhaul for the GW you might want to consider contacting Lacuna Space!.. just a thought 
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well noted.
I will research these topics and especially the gateways that include LoRaWAN servers I have never heard of.
in fact, I have seen a lot of research and IoT project with which I inspired this idea which is:
monitoring six lakes, by studying the position and the number of footbridges that I will place between these lakes, and then configured these gateways on the Things Network’s LoRaWAN network server.
that’s the idea in general.
the problem I have been thinking of is the transmission of data between the gateways and the LoRawAN server of the Things Network using the internet. and if I have no internet and the gateway is placed very far from the office then I wanted to use it LoRa access points to extend the network to the office there will be Internet and the data consultation computer. these access points I have seen proposed by this manufacturer.
Passerelle point d'accès LoRaWAN MultiTech Conduit Access Point - DataPrint.
or to rent with the telecommunications operator special subscriptions or Sim card that I integrate into the gateway even if it will be expensive, so I will have a combination between the LoRaWAN network and the GSM or if there are LoRaWAN gateways with SIM that can be used I will look for.
what do you think this can be possible?
please tell me about LoRa / LoRaWAN simulation software. it can help me to analyze and prove what I think.
Unfortunately
but I will continue my research, it is an objective and it is necessary that I succeed.
of course the help of the members of the forum is much requested.
Thank you
Thank you a lot
it is well noted
I think this is the right solution if I cannot find the gateways include the LoRaWAN server offered by @cslorabox.
This was also offered to me by @kersing but I thought about the cost and the difficulty of setting up.
I will check
Thank you so much @Jeff-UK
@kersing
Thank you it can be a solution adaptable to our context.
how can I have a LoRaWAN satellite for testing? I hope it is not very expensive?
What is your budget limit for the POC - thay may influence recommendations… 
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the budget is according to the efficiency of a solution however it should not be expensive as this makes the solution inappropriate.