I was contacted and provided my serial debug log back in December. Never got any feedback though. Support is very bad/not existing.
I just got back from a TTN community meeting in my area. Most members would love to buy and run a gateway but don’t want to spent the effort to build their own hardware. TTN gateway is also out of scope due to the experiences listed here. So looks like LoRa coverage in my area will stay bad.
This is my personal opinion, not authorized by TTN.
I think the TTN Team underestimated massively the difficulty of developing an embedded device allowed to transmit radio. For this your device needs to be approved by FCC and other national agencies, even if an approved chip set is used.
Secondly, developing embedded software and hardware is hard. My company and my teams do so, and it requires experienced engineers and good processes.
Thirdly, producing a few prototypes is easy. You can solder in a new component, add a wire. Producing a series which does not require modification is hard… again, design for production is yet another skill.
These three steps the TTN team anticipated for the Kickstarter. They underestimated the obstacles, cost and timescale duration however.
Subsequently, developing a network infrastructure which is reliable, scalable, and manageable is very hard too. Read some of the forum messages about best-effort reliability and quality of service. In my opinion the TTN team surpassed themselves in this area… they did very well so far… but what will happen if the scale increases tremendously?
Now all of these facts, and a small core team, mean that with over 934 backers the team is overextended trying to work through the logistics of getting the supplies out to the backers, and subsequently supporting those who have problems.
And of course, people who have a working Gateway do not post… so it all looks very negative.
I would recommend dedicating technical personnel to resolving issues with those backers who have received a Gateway, and publish trouble shooting or diagnostic steps. Get other people to chase the logistics and deliveries.
Anyway… I hope TTN can get their act together… When it works, it works well!
Peter
4 Likes
Thanks. That is the next thing I am going to try: set-up the TTN-gateway for a wired connection. Sending the configuration to the gateway via a wireless connection seems to work. Self-activation of the gateway via the wireless uplink is problematic in my case.
1 Like
Just received the gateway and had some troubles getting it up and running. What happened:
- Initially it was doing a FOTA, which took 10 - 15 minutes to start and complete
- After the reboot it seemed to start quite fast
- After unplugging it and plugging it again, it took ~ 5 minutes to get back up (many
MON: heap usageandMON: SYS Stack sizelogs before it actually did anything)
Basically this took quite some time (third led flashing):
>WIFI: IP Address: 0.0.0.0
CB: INET: Gateway has WiFi
INET: State change to 2
INET: Connected to a network, waiting for DHCP lease, checking validity with ping
SNTP: State change from 1 to 2
WIFI: IP Address: 192.168.1.185
LORA: Wait init complete, waiting for application.
LORA: Changing state from 1 to 2
INET: State change to 3
INET: Ping probe
INET: Error sending probe on Eth
INET: Ping response from MRF24WN, set as default
INET: State change to 4
SNTP: State change from 2 to 3
MON: SYS Stack size: 3967
MON: heap usage: 147KB (156KB), free: 192KB
SNTP: State change from 3 to 4
SNTP: State change from 4 to 5
SNTP: State change from 5 to 6
SNTP: State change from 6 to 7
INET: State change to 5
MAIN: Leaving state 2
MAIN: Entering state 3
CNFG: Load online user config state change to 4
HTTP: Close active socket 0
HTTP: Starting connection
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
MON: SYS Stack size: 3961
MON: heap usage: 151KB (156KB), free: 188KB
HTTPS: Connection Opened: Starting TLS Negotiation
HTTP: Wait for TLS Connect
HTTP: TLS Connection Opened: Starting Clear Text Communication
HTTP: Got 1279 bytes
HTTP: Connection Closed
HTTP: Close active socket 1
CONF: Parsing response token: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
CONF: ROUTER URL: mqtts://bridge.eu.thethings.network:8883
CNFG: Load online user config state change to 6
FREQ: APP_URL_Buffer: https://account.thethingsnetwork.org/api/v2/frequency-plans/EU_863_870
HTTP: Starting connection
HTTPS: Connection Opened: Starting TLS Negotiation
HTTP: Wait for TLS Connect
HTTP: TLS Connection Opened: Starting Clear Text Communication
HTTP: Got 1232 bytes
HTTP: Connection Closed
HTTP: Close active socket 1
CNFG: Load online user config state change to 7
CNFG: Configuring LoRa module
LORA: Changing state from 2 to 4
LORA: Starting reconfiguration
LORA: version: 01
MON: SYS Stack size: 2876
MON: heap usage: 151KB (233KB), free: 188KB
LORA: Configuration succeeded
LORA: Starting operation
LORA: Changing state from 4 to 6
MON: SYS Stack size: 2876
MON: heap usage: 151KB (233KB), free: 188KB
LORA: Changing state from 6 to 3
LORA: GOING ASYNC
LORA: Changing state from 3 to 9
CNFG: Load online user config state change to 9
MAIN: Leaving state 3
MAIN: Entering state 4
FLASH: Loading FOTA Data
FIRM: Requesting key ...
HTTP: Starting connection
HTTPS: Connection Opened: Starting TLS Negotiation
HTTP: Wait for TLS Connect
HTTP: TLS Connection Opened: Starting Clear Text Communication
LORA: Packet dropped! Bad CRC
LORA: Packet dropped! Bad CRC
HTTP: Got 568 bytes
HTTP: Connection Closed
HTTP: Close active socket 1
FIRM: Starting download
FIRM: available bytes: 79
FIRM: (Downloaded FOTA key) 69 AE B7 78 1F 49 4E 7F BC B6 C7 CD 9C 59 4F 5D FA AA 3D 81 D4 9C 56 90 A6 83 81 98 FF 18 88 6A
FIRM: (Stored FOTA key) 69 AE B7 78 1F 49 4E 7F BC B6 C7 CD 9C 59 4F 5D FA AA 3D 81 D4 9C 56 90 A6 83 81 98 FF 18 88 6A
FIRM: Firmware is already downloaded
MAIN: No new firmware available
MAIN: Leaving state 4
MAIN: Entering state 5
MQTT: GOT IP: 52.169.76.203
Connecting to: 52.169.76.203
MQTT: Connection Opened: Starting TLS Negotiation
MQTT: Wait for SSL Connect
MQTT: TLS ready: Connect MQTT
RQMQTT: Connected
When you connect to both the RX and TX serial pins, you can also type help to get a list of commands you can execute.
2 Likes
Good point, it just received it and I was curious after all the reports if it was actually booting. I don’t have time to test if data is getting through right now, but will test and follow up later today.
1 Like
I have receivied the gateway today (Sheffield, UK), and it registered/activated smoothly following the activation portal steps.
I have turned on a Sodaq Explorer as a node, it connects and I can see the data traffic through web console.
That’s pretty much a success, isn’t it?
8 Likes
Yes, I also get data through 
4 Likes
I’m now mapping myself to put the Gateway on www.ttnmapper.org… hoping to fill a void between Amsterdam and Hilversum…
Feel free to make use of my Gateway but the range will be limited until I experiment with and fix the antenna!
1 Like
…how would you even prevent that? 
2 Likes
I know I can’t… but I just want to be welcoming… 
4 Likes
I left my gateway powered on once more during the night, eventually it gets online but I guess this happens when it stays running just long enough to register itself online, in the morning no contact was possible. So it seems the configuration is correct, right?
I have received and activated the gateway without problem with home ADSL but now I have to connect the gateway in my company network with ethernet cable.
I need to know how I have to configure the firewall for the needs of the things gateway and also an easy method to find the mac address of the ethernet interface will be usefull.
In Boston, which is comparable in size to Amsterdam, I may ask some well-situated individuals/companies whether they may wish to host a TTN gateway. I am guessing that some may want to know how much total traffic it would be expected to use, how much of their Internet resources it would consume. How should I best answer that? Is there a record of bandwidth utilized by Amsterdam TTN gateways that I could cite? Thanks.
@sronan I can tell from practical experience in our Apeldoorn community that our gateway does 10 Megabytes per day data.
2 Likes
Received my gateway today.
It has the 5 led on then reboot loop issue, caused by poor connection to the Microchip radio card.
I’ve managed to fix mine by removing the foam rubber piece under the radio card. I suspect this was a ‘quick fix’ addition at the factory to try and help with this issue but in my case the foam was too thick so that the radio card wasn’t parallel to the main board. Removing the foam has allowed me to keep the radio board parallel and it seems to be working much more reliably now.
Maybe it might help someone else?
OK. Spoke too soon. It still has the same issue 
The rebooting problem seems to be solved by installating beta frimaware. This can be activated via the gateway console.
Stable for over 3 hours, before just a couple of minutes.
Note: Rebooting again
Maybe my gw shares the same cause, i tried to losen the two white pins on the lora board but i couldnt lift it from its socket as if it was glued to the mainboard. Was that the case in your gw as well?