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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Honey Bee Safe: LoraWan Outdoor Attempt

ntewinkel
Honey Bee Safe: LoraWan Outdoor Attempt

After getting all of the initial bits set up while at my desk, I was unfortunately unable to reach any LoraWan gateway on The Things Network.

Given that I was testing it at my desk indoors, I knew that this wasn’t the optimal situation. So I decided to try it from the back deck of our carriage house, which is about 15 feet (5 meters) up from the ground and faces the gateway in Comox that is nearest to me, about 2.5kms away.

The trick is, I don’t have a laptop to try it with! I had considered maybe setting up a Raspberry Pi up in the suite, but luckily I was able to save myself that effort and just use my old android phone with a serial monitor and a little USB-OTG cable that I already had. This is more portable, especially if I want to try connecting from a different location later on.

image

A few things are not optimal: firstly, the antennas I have are not tuned to be used as Lora antennas; secondly, there’s a forest between me and the gateway, and probably some houses on the other side of the forest; and thirdly, I really don’t know what I’m doing Laughing, so there’s a chance I’m missing some other critical step Thinking 

image

Unfortunately, it still didn’t connect. I might try driving closer to the gateway at some point, but for now I think I’ll just continue on with the image detection part of the challenge using the Nicla Vision.

Ps, does anyone know if I have to specify which gateway I intend to connect to? I’m wondering if that’s part of the problem Thinking 

  • It is difficult to get a quantitative view without having access to the receiver, but I would try a few things that I'm sure you've probably already done.

    Make sure you have separation between your antenna and other objects (the phone, your body, etc).  Try the antenna in different orientations.  I have had better luck with FPC antennas oriented in a vertical vs horizontal plane and try rotating it to see if that helps.

    I haven't had much luck connecting to other gateways in my area (I've always used my gateway) .  I should pay more attention to see how much external traffic I get on my gateway.  My gateway is not optimized for distance (it is indoor - I have considered adding an outdoor antenna, but I only use sensors on my property).

  • in reply to javagoza

    That’s a good question. It seems to do all the usual serial communications and blinking LED stuff so I never thought more about it. I’ll pop it onto a breadboard instead.

  • I don't have an answer to your questions but I do have some questions. I see that you use the arduino board clicked on the protection pad. I am not very clear about what good insulator it can be since it also protects against ESD discharges. Is this practice safe? It's probably a stupid question but I'm not sure.