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  • Author Author: Jan Cumps
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Bumpy Road? : Connecting an Arduino MKR1310 WAN to The Things Network

Jan Cumps

Here's my first experience with the Arduino MKR1310 and The Things Network (TTN).

A (failed) attempt to follow the tutorial and connect to TTN.

I'm using a Arduino MKR 1310 WAN, tested with two different 868 MHz antennas, in an area known to be covered by TTN.

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I'm following the tutorial step by step.

  • installed the latest board support: Arduino SAM Boards version 1.8.7
  • and latest MKRWAN lib, 1.0.12

 

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Made an application on TTN:

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Loaded the FirstConfiguration sketch to my board:

 

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Ran it:

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Registered my device using the Device EUI:

 

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Selected OTAA, and entered the APP EUI and KEY.

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No success. The board returns "Something went wrong; are you indoor? Move near a window and retry", and TTN console says there was no contact.

 

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image source: the things network

 

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image source: ttn mapper. I live uphill, one of the highest parts of the city called "Litlle Hill". In a beam.

 

Any advice?

  • in reply to robbarter

      wrote:

     

    Do you know the configuration of the nearest station?   What sort of antenna it has and where it is placed etc.  The overall path loss depends on the whole system, not just yours unfortunately....

    Antenna type was listed on the coverage map, together with the module name and other attributes.

    I don't recall all of them, only remember it's on a UNI campus and that antenna and station types were available.

  • Do you know the configuration of the nearest station?   What sort of antenna it has and where it is placed etc.  The overall path loss depends on the whole system, not just yours unfortunately.  I have a station at my house but it's indoors at the moment with a small inefficient aerial but perfectly fine for my prototype testing inside the house.  Apologies to anyone trying to use it from more than a few 100m away.

  • in reply to fmilburn

    Functionally, the 1310 is similar to the 1300. Arduino optimised the power consumption.

     

    So did I image. When I get a MKR board and want to run low power, I disable the ON LED.

    In the past I did that by desoldering the LED. But that's destructive. These LEDs don't like heat and it's very hard to get one off the PCB intact.

    These days, I remove the series resistor. That one can just be pushed off by pressing a hot chisel type solderering iron against it.

    Less risky and easy to revert.

     

    image

  • in reply to fmilburn

    Correction: mine are MKR1300, not 1310.  I looked back at my notes and the furthest successful transmissions with my antennas was under a kilometer and that was unobstructed line of sight. 

  • I have 2 MKR1300s and a TTN gateway.  Don't know if the newer boards improved range.  I'm not sure what kind of coverage you are expecting but the nearest gateway on your map looks to be about 3km away.  I live in an medium density suburban neighborhood and I could never get even close to that range.  Of course, I don't have my gateway antenna outside but I doubt that I can do a kilometer.  I think as Frank says, if you have a direct line of sight and no frequency interference you can probably do better.  I don't typically use my units outside the perimeter of my yard.  Maybe you could try getting nearer to the Central Station.