Now, I would like to perform some tests in order to maximize the range.
In the meantime, I would like to understand why not all the packets sent by the test device are visible in the TTN console:
As you can see, only one packet every eight is shown.
’ Once again, I take the opportunity to say that I would never use a board like the Raspberry PI to implement a real product. For many reasons, including but not limited to reliability, in my opinion, these boards are OK to make Proof of concepts (PoC) or** hobbyist **projects only.’
hmmm … I disagree
your (nice) article describes a SINGLE CHANNEL gateway, that’s the reason your missing packets.
SINGLE CHANNEL gateways are only for test purposes and study because they are not LoRaWAN compliant.
To ‘fix’ the missing packets you have to edit the channels in your LMIC node (from 8 to 1 ch - same ch as gateway)
@BoRRoZ
Thank you very much for your prompt response.
I know that this statement could sound a little bit harsh and I am also aware that there are real products based on RPi or similar boards.
Anyway, I have been involved in embedded systems for industrial applications for 20 years and reliability and longevity are part of my DNA. So please forgive me if I’m a little bit conservative in this regard …
P.S.: For instance, after installing my gateway, the file system corrupted twice in a month … I always advise my customers to choose a more reliable non-volatile storage than a microSD card.
Anyway, you’ve build a nice hobby installation, So making a backup of your SD card shouldn’t be a problem too There are no lives in danger (then you wouldn’t even use LoRaWAN )
You managed to create a minimal functional system. For a working system you need a LoRaWAN gateway, not a single channel ‘gateway’ which does not adhere to the LoRaWAN specification.
It would help people Googling if you modify your story to include that that setup is not specification compliant and will only receive a subset of the data a real gateway receives.
Other issues:
Never send ASCII text. Even in examples use binary as your code will be cut-and-pasted to a new program and new users assume they need to send text and end up wasting airtime.
Please don’t encourage people to use ABP and disable frame counter checks. OTAA is the way to go. (given your ‘gateway’ ABP might be the only thing that actually works, did you verify the ‘gateway’ supports downlinks?)
@kersing
Thank you very much for pointing these issues out.
There are many “details” about the LoRaWAN world that I’m not completely aware of yet. So these remarks are very helpful to grasp them.
I’ll update my post ASAP.
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