Hi, I’m in Australia, I’d like to set up a public TTN gateway and I’m a little short of time to fiddle with RPi and RAK831.
Has anyone used the Laird RG191 on AU band plan?
It’s $327.60 from Digikey.
Anyone?
It’s designed for 915 and mentions US, but i’m hoping it can be configured for AU band plan.
Sorry @Megabyte I think all the Australians must be asleep (or at the beach perhaps!).
Unfortunately I have no experience with the Laird gateway you mention, however there is a large TTN meeting tonight in Perth so I will ask around and see if anyone has used them.
Phil
Thanks Phil!
@Megabyte I asked around at the Perth event and unfortunately nobody I spoke with had experience with these units. They have a good price and you can order them through mouser quickly, so I am a little surprised.
Common units in use were Multitech and ActiveX.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help…
Thanks for the feedback Phil. I hadn’t heard of the ActiveX version yet so I’ll look into that one too.
Cheers!
Hey @Megabyte, I’ve talk to laird about the RG191 there but unfortunately there isn’t a Australian version (Australian Lorawan frequency bands) at the moment, I’ve got my fingers crossed they will start supporting Australia with their line up of lorawan products sometime in the future.
Cheers
Adam.
I don’t have the 915Mhz version to test this, but pretty sure you can choose “download current configuration as JSON” under LoRa -> Advanced which give you a file very similar to the the one TTN provides:
change the one from the gateway to match the frequencies listed on the TTN one then upload the changed JSON file back using the “upload a custom configuration JSON file”.
Underneath it’s just running the normal Semtech packet forwarder so I can’t imagine this wouldn’t work. You might even be able to just upload the TTN file over without any changes.
Hey @jmarcelino, nice work I believe that would work too, but I’m hoping that they will certify the RG191 for Australian use, I believe it wouldn’t be legal to use the gateway in a Australia?
Cheers
Adam.
Probably not without a RCM mark, but does any LoRa hardware have it?
I don’t see any module certified for Australia for example.
I’ve been in touch with laird, and unfortunately they are not planning to release AU firmware at this stage. There is a forum post about getting SSH access, but from memory that forum said it required proprietary software/codes.
Thus, I think at this time the Laird device is not usable in AU. Hopefully they change their minds soon.
There is no need for SSH access to update the packet forwarder configuration. That can be done in the web interface. You can download the configuration from TTN github, update any required fields and upload it to the gateway.
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I have tried that, but it fails:
400 - Bad Request : REQUEST JSON does not validate against schema
I downloaded the current configuration file from the device (US), then modified the frequencies for each of the channels according to the TTN conf.json but when I upload I get the above error. I have also tried to adjust the frequencies manually using the slider in the web interface.
Without more info, I am guessing the firmware checks the frequencies against the location and rejects them if they differ.
Some further testing …
I can change all the “if” values for channels in the config file, and country codes and the new config file uploads and is recognised as updated.
If I change either/both of the frequencies for Radio 0 or Radio 1 to the AU standard, I get the same error message:
400 - Bad Request : REQUEST JSON does not validate against schema
I think we need some changes in the firmware before we can use this in Australia.
You are right:
"oneOf":[
{
"minimum":902000000,
"maximum":915000000
},
{
"minimum":863000000,
"maximum":870000000
}
]
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Grrr these seemingly arbitrary decisions is why I don’t like gateways I don’t have root access to.
One thing’s for sure I won’t be buying/recommend Laird gateways anymore if they restrict the root loophole without a suitable alternative.
Hey all,
I was just looking at the RG191 and wondering if there was any update. The units look good for a few different purposes… especially with the price and BLE inside.
Is there anything else someone would recommend (must include Eth, Wifi, BLE) to use instead?
…Skeeve
I hoped to buy a few hassle-free gateways to deploy in Perth. After a lot of wasted time invested in Raspberry Pi RAK 831 shield gateways I decided to move to a more ‘commercial’ option.
I contacted Laird to ask what their position was in support for AU915 frequency bands at the moment and got this response:
Currently (as of Mar 2018), RG1xx supports three packet forwarders : Semtech, TTN, and Loriot packet forwarder.
The regional support that we include in our firmware affects the Semtech forwarder only. This region parameter is used to draw the radio frequency graph, including any restricted bands for that region, and limits the user from selecting a band that’s not allowed.
However if the you opt to use one of our trusted third parties, such as the things network using TTN packet forwarder, you can select the region of operation from the servers. This effectively bypasses our internal checking and relies on the third party for compliance to the regions restrictions
Has anyone taken this approach with the RG191 in Australia? I am unclear how I can alter the packet forwarder given the restrictions discussed previously in this thread.
The latest firmware includes the (no longer maintained) TTN packet forwarder. In the user interface you can choose to use this software in stead of the Semtech forwarder. Once you select the TTN software the ‘issue’ disappears as it downloads the frequency plan from TTN and does not use the locally configured frequency plan.
Choosing the packet forwarder does not involve any region checks 
Just to clarify @kersing
The previous threads discussed the difficulties in configuring the gateway without root access. Are you indicating this is no longer essential to adjust regional frequencies in the packet forwarder?