I have tested (at first) with the “rubber duck” antenna, but of course on a different location because my house has a Steel roof.
With the standard antenna (which is not more than a piece of wire inside a tube) the reception seems even worse.
Yesterday I have been in Hoofddorp (near Schiphol Airport) but even there the 7200 does not get received by other gateways. To be honest… I am at this moment highly dissapointed in what was announced as the solution to most of our problems, Lora, to me does not work at all.
The area covered using “standard” devices, like a RAK 7200 / 7205 is minimal and that takes away the advantage of the system because if there are no gateways nearby, the Lora system does not work.
Maybe in a City like Amsterdam Lora works because of the many gateways available, but in more Rural area’s (like Medemblik where I live) I am the FIRST Gateway.
Neither LoRa or LoRaWAN is a dead end, or do you think the many thousands of successful implementations are not real, as in some form of conspiracy theory ?
LoRa cannot subvert the laws or physics or propagation. You need appropriate antennas, short or no cable connections between gateway and antenna and you need to locate the antenna as high as possible. Its the same for most all IOT systems that rely on wireless connectivity.
The antenna you showed in the picture earlier looks well dodgy, with a very long and thin cable. The cable alone is likely cutting your range in half, even if the antenna is a geniune one for 868Mhz, and I have great doubts about that.
While I am not an RF expert, the metal roof will probably have a big impact on your results as it will serve both as a huge groundplane and will also work as a shield and reflector.
As already said by others, the monopole antenna in your picture/link does not compare to antenna"s used for more serious outdoor setups.
Don’t expect positive miracles from that antenna.
LoRaWAN may or may not be suitable for your applications but the proper setup of RF parts (antenna, its radiation pattern, its location/position, cabling, connectors, groundplane etc) will play a very essential role in the range and coverage of your gateway.
Outdoor gateways are available starting from around €160, external antenna from around €30-40.add to that some quality cabling and you can have a complete outdoor gateway starting for around €300.
The important difference between outdoor and indoor gateway is that with outdoor the antenna can be placed outdoors while the antenna cable can be kept as short as possible so RF losses can be kept to a minimum.
A chain is as strong as it’s weakest link and there are multiple links that play a role. E.g. the RAK 7200 and the quality and position of its antenna also play a role here.
Too bad nobody adds information on where this Outdoor gateway for around 300 Euro might be available
I guess Lora is a great idea… but not what it sells to be. I guess also THE reason KPN has no succes whatsoever with their LORA network
I will investigate a bit more, but like I said… My enthousiasm is no longer there.
Using low power long range WAN networks is more complex and less evident than buying a TV, connecting it to an antenna wall outlet and then start watching.
If you want to setup your own environment you will have to investigate and do some homework yourself. If this is not for you then maybe you should consult a solutions provider.
No one is going to present you a complete working solution that matches your needs on a silver platter (unless you pay them for it).
We are not here to do your homework . You can find information and advice about antenna’s here (search is your friend): The BIG and SMALL ANTENNA topic part 2.
I guess Lora is a great idea… but not what it sells to be.
It is not clear what your expectations are and what they are based on (shiny sales brochure or study of LoRaWAN technical specifications and real use cases), but your current setup with single indoor gateway (with ‘sub optimal’ antenna) and some nodes is not exactly representative for the quality, possibilities and usability of LoRaWAN in general. LoRa is actually ‘just’ a radio modulation technology. It doesn’t sell anything, people do.
If you want more help from others it helps to clearly specify your use case, provide requirements and other relevant details and ask more targeted questions.
For experiments you do not need a different gateway at the moment. You can start with a decent antenna with proper placement and during the tests place your current gateway on the roof with mains power and LAN extension cables (in case you use wired LAN) but only with dry weather conditions of course. You can also start experimenting with other nodes. But do not expect a solution that works perfectly for your case right out of the box.
That might indicate your nodes antenna is not optimal and does not live up to your expectations.
I invested several thousands to provide gateways in the north of NL. So certainly some people want to invest.
IoT is not plug and play. IoT needs to be tailored to use cases. That requires knowledge and investing time. That applies to the IoT stacks provided by Amazon and Azure as well as the IoT gateways and devices.
If you want plug and play you can engage a system integrator to do that work for you.
Then may-be you read the wrong marketing brochures? I’ve several use cases deployed without issues. However I invested a lot of time to understand the technology.
Lora is presented as “The Internet of Things”
Low Power usage, low amount of data, but long range.
Most systems that I have tested and read about thus far, are only low power usage and low amount of data.
The “Long range” does not work very well. At least not with the “home solutions” on “The Things”.
I have done some tests with the KPN Lora network and due to the large amount of antenna’s on strategical positions, the KPN LoRa network seems to work for example with tracking systems.
I understand (working in IT myself) that you can build solutions that will work, when creating the proper circumstances, but this will not be a viable option for creating products that can work “out of the box” for the lesser technical in our society.
To me, The Things Network seems like a really nice Idea for hobyist, same a the 2meter broadcast amateurs that I was part of. Unless a gateway system can be build with enough coverage, The Things, will remain something for us “geeks”.
LoRa together with TTN does provide systems with enough coverage that a lot of users are quite happy about, that is self evident.
More coverage and longer distances would be great, but the technology does not exist to provide it. Legal restrictions prevent more power or high gain antennas being used.
I regularly see devices reach out over several km. The concept of long range absolutely has to be put in context of low power - you can’t have low power (years running on two AA batteries, license free, thousands of users) AND 10’s of kms.
There are no “home solutions” - almost all devices & gateways require some level of technical ability to setup & run.
TTN pay for & maintain a server infrastructure for free for community use - the deployment of gateways is up to us.
I have never seen LoRaWAN advertised as an ‘out the box’ solution for non-technical end users, aka ‘home solutions’. I doubt it will ever be in that position as the cost / scaling issues would preclude it compared to the quick win of GSM - stick in a SIM and go.
If there was a compelling use case for a device and some sort of dashboard for end-users that was appropriate to run over the TTN community network, then I’d pre-configure the module before shipping.
There are many many commercial companies providing good coverage. TTN Community provision is based on people providing gateways and respecting the use limits.
This scenario is somewhat similar to my gliding (sailplane) activities - there are clubs all around the UK but not necessarily on everyones doorstep. You can be taught to fly for free but we can’t make it fool-proof, you have to put in the effort to learn. Clubs are run by volunteers and so everyone has to contribute to make it all work. If you are really technically competent you can get long range (+500km) and it uses no power after the launch …
Think what aeroplanes were like 110 years ago.
Think what medicine was like 100 years ago.
Think what radio was like 80 years ago.
Think what TV was like 60 years ago.
Think what cars were like 50 years ago.
Think what PCs were like 40 years ago.
Think what computer networks were like 30 years ago.
Think what mobile phones were like 20 years ago.
What if all those people had behaved like you and given up when they couldn’t get it to work first time.
Roll your sleeves up and put in the hard work. It’s worth it. It works very well when it’s done right.
Just my 2 cents, I am using the same Dragino PG1301 + Rpi3 gateway indoors with a ‘real’ LoRa antenna (not a cheap chinese one, they are not suitable) and already cover more then 4 km with a TTGO tracker node with a rubber duck antenna.
The chinese antenna’s tend to have a very bad SWR, some of them are even GSM (915 MHz) antenna’s and perform very bad at 868 MHz. A good antenna, position and good cable will make all the difference.
Respectfully need to disagree. I have been experimenting with LoRaWAN, and not much more than that (although, with two collegues, we presented a plan to cover The Netherlands with cheap ($10 range) LoRa devices to check for abuse of the FM; 88~108 MHz band).
During that particular experiment, I did connect my HellTec (https://heltec.org/project/wifi-lora-32/) to a gateway some 900 meters away, and later, to another, almost 3KM away!
So, distance is there. Gateways are few and far between, in some areas, like Monickendam…
Checking the Gateways map and checking on outdoor antennas might help.
It is called the community network because the community needs to provide the gateways… So that is the challenge for us all, how to successfully get sufficient gateways deployed.
I believe, that is what @it-gypsy is trying to do, with disappointing results.
I was merely pointing out, my experience differs (but I run no gateway - vague plans do exist, but I have no use for LoRaWAN, so I would not benefit, only the community would).
I would urge @IT-Gypsy to shop for a decent, probably glass fiber, outdoor antenna. Seems like lots of gateway owners have such a set up. Just search for it. Andreas Spiess has some nice video’s on the subject, and holds the distance record (over land)
That is an incorrect generalization because there are also good ‘Chinese antennas’ (and the ‘GSM types’ are often the very small indoor types).
While I have no personal experience with outdoor antenna’s, decent/good Chinese outdoor antenna’s do exist (if untrue then experts should correct me).
There even exist more decent ‘Chinese’ indoor ‘rubber duck’ type (actually it’s more stiff plastic) dipole antennas that can be used with a gateway. But don’t expect outdoor range miracles when placed indoors.
The problem with many ‘Chinese antennas’ advertised on sites like AliExpress is that they are most often not suitable and not designed for what they are advertised for (and there are very crappy ones).
99% of the sellers of those antenna’s are not specialized in RF (at all).
The ones specialized in RF usually also sell better suitable antenna’s.
Just like the indoor antennas, there are good and bad ones. In general when buying goods check what the seller claims to sell carefully. Vague specifications like at least x dBi are a sign of potential issues. A seller should be able to provide a report with details on the radiation patterns and other performance details of their product, if that isn’t available the antennas might not have been tested and all claims regarding performance are to be handled with care.
I have at least 15 outdoor antennas from different manufacturers, from reputable USA based to cheap Chinese. The antennas that do not perform as expected in my collection are cheap Chinese where the documentation wasn’t available. Some of those antennas arrived chipped (as in the plastic antenna outer shell had damage, small ‘cuts’) while the packaging was excellent. If that slips past quality control the issues might not stop at the outside of the product. As a result of my experience I stopped buying cheap Chinese outdoor antennas and get them from reputable manufacturers these days.
Some reputable manufacturers have their antennas manufactured in China so not all Chinese manufactured antennas are bad, it is just hard to find which are good and which aren’t if there isn’t an reputable party doing the quality control for you.
However, no matter the quality of the antenna, if the mounting point is not right the best antenna won’t work well. The ideal mounting point is high up with an unobstructed view of the horizon. No buildings of trees (trees especially when in leaf are a significant RF obstacle) should block the view.
If the ideal antenna position is not an option you need to adjust your expectations accordingly.
And of course the antenna cable and connectors are very important as well. Use good quality cable with low attenuation at the target frequency, keep it as short as possible.
I am pretty sure if you use proper antenna (Farnell 230-5899, just for an example), your LoRa waves will travel over long distance. Just that you can feel what LoRa can do. You can see on a picture my node in underground shaft, covered with metal cover. Still got -110 dB on the Rpi+IMST gateway, 12 meters away, mounted on the roof of my house.
. You can find information and advice about antenna’s here (search is your friend): 
