3 Channel LoRaWan Nano Gateway

[jmarcelino]

@jamjam
There's no need to collate the data, just register the 3 LoPys listening on different frequencies as 3 gateways with TTN

Also it's better to keep the LoPys well spaced apart (and use Wifi) because:

1. Multiple LoPys combined into a single board would count as a single product which would have regulatory (FCC, CE etc) problems

2. The Radio receive path on LoPy the is extremely sensitive so if one of the LoPys transmits it would the affect reception in the others that are close by overloading the amplifiers, if it's too close it may even damage them. It's best to keep your LoPys apart by a couple of meters.

Real gateways avoid this by physically (via RF switch) preventing reception while a transmission is taking place.

[jamjam]

@jmarcelino good point, I like this, though I was thinking if you used one as master you could avoid issues regarding point 2

[jamjam]

@bmarkus fair point but for a debug setup £90 is very attractive attractive price point.

[jmarcelino]

@jamjam
You can buy a real DIY gateway (RAK831+Raspberry Pi) for about £150 these days, not sure the savings are worth it.

Single channel is still interesting though.

[jamjam]

@jmarcelino thanks for the heads up in the RAK831, think your right this would be much better. 9 Parallel demod (LoRa) paths from what I can see...

[jmarcelino]

@jamjam
Yes the RAK831 is a full LoRaWAN gateway board and uses the same chip as all LoRaWAN gateways (Semtech SX1301) so it does all the necessary LoRa channels in all spreading factors

[bmarkus]

It would be interesting to connect a SX1301 board via SPI to a PyCom ESP32 board like WiPy2 (LoPy my work but LoRa modem would be useless) and make a 'real' GW.

[jmarcelino]

@bmarkus
Indeed.. not for the LoPy but for another Pycom board coming soon starting with G ;-)

[jamjam]

@jmarcelino how soon is soon?

[jmarcelino]

@jamjam
In the last Kickstarter update they said end of Sept, but let's say 2 months.