The most useless board I have ever had

[rholas]

@robert-hh Im 9kms away from Lorawan gateway.
But what about Sigfox coverage? Im 9 km away from cities.

[robert-hh]

@rholas If the coverage is for the city, than sigfox will mos likely also no choice. It is too restricted by the same frequency/power rules as LoRa. Then one choice would be so set up your own gateway with LTE as communication means.

[jcaron]

@robert-hh Ah, didn't about those maps. Indeed not quite representative of reality! Like, at all.

@rholas 9 km away, unless the gateway is outdoors with a good antenna on a pretty high point (how high it needs to be depends on where you are and the topography between you and them), it's quite unlikely anything will ever go through.

You can check on TTN Mapper what they say, though this depends a lot of activity in the area to get a decent map.

You can also try tools such as https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ to map the path between the gateway and your device.

[SciWax]

Another advise. Before you say something doesn't work, please get as close as possible to the nearest Gateway. For instance, If I'm next to the Gateway and see that I can't send a payload, then I would do the next step to see if it is a coding issue.

Always start with simple examples.

Kind regards,

SciWax

[rholas]

@robert-hh Thanks, I dont understand why lying about 10 km range with Lorawan and Sigfox technology.
I planning to try with Nb-Iot with Fipy.

[robert-hh]

@rholas said in The most useless board I have ever had:

10 km range with Lorawan and Sigfox technology.

This is a kind of marketing speach. In my test where I drove around my neighborship, I could get that with an almost clean area between sender and receiver - just a few trees, and send and receiver high positioned. Other test points failed with just a few 100 m between sender and receiver, with high buildings in between. So it's very much a matter of the actual situation.
I do not know which setting you tried, but at DR=0, which is the slowest, you have the best reach. If you can install an own gateway closer to your bee colonies, than you can optimize the setup for that.

[jcaron]

@rholas 10 km is definitely possible in the right conditions, and actually a lot more, there have been many reports of hundreds of km.

But like all radio technologies, it is affected by obstacles between the two endpoints. That’s why line of sight makes such a difference, and why height of either of both ends helps so much with that.

I’ve had links over 10 km without even trying (outdoors, with a gateway on a high point and the device quite high as well), and others not even reaching a few hundred meters (indoors).

With LoRaWAN having your own gateway helps you control those parameters, as TTN is just a community effort with very variable coverage. In the case of SigFox, you’d have to take that up with them.

[rholas]

If I bought Gpy + Pygate + Vodafone Nb-Iot this system will work with my Lopy4-s from 3 km-s away in open area?

[robert-hh]

@rholas I expect that. Please place the device such that they have an unobstructed view, and consider connecting an external antenna. Do the set-up while the device are close together.

[jcaron]

@rholas the point is really: can you see the gateway antenna from the device antenna?

It’s a bit more complex than that as there’s the Fresnel zone which requires quite a bit of clearance above ground, and on the other hand you can actually get through a few obstacles, but the essence is there: each obstacle you have to go through is the equivalent of kilometres of free space (how much exactly depends on the material, thickness, etc.).

This is the reason why having the gateway antenna as high as possible helps (that’s why cellular antennas are always on masts or on top of buildings): the higher you are the less chances for obstruction on the way.

Be aware that some omni antennas with high gain have a limited vertical opening angle which may be counterproductive in some scenarios, so take that into account before going that route.