#196 

I think this video is going spawn whole new series of LORA Gateways around the world. Thanks to you and all the people who contributed to this project for such a great tutorial.

According to the Things Network home page there are 274 loragateways in Switzerland. My guess is that the majority of those are on your balcony ;-)

Another thorough and beautifully crafted presentation that will become the 'go to' for Gateway builds! Very well worth waiting for. Well done!

Awsome, i have already thought of 101 things i can use this for. Thank you for yoyr time and teaching us lesser mortals.

Yes, another great video Andreas! Brilliant idea to put the GW in a easy-to-purchase drainage tube

Another great video! There are pads on the rPi 0-W for an external antenna connector. There's a 0 ohm resistor above the pads that must be rotated clockwise by 45 degrees. It's easier with a microscope.

Thank you, Andreas. This was another great video.

Nice video, which makes me want to build one. I have already built one based on the IMST Concentrator, but only recently came across the RAK one. Have subscribed to your youtube channel.

Thanks so much as always for talking about Lora.

Now finding a nice tall place to mount one is the only real issue. Thank you!

thank you for this interesting comparison and hands-on lab

Thank you Andreas for interesting tutorial.

As usual fantastic work.

Thanks for sharing 😀👍 Interesting stuff 👍

Bravo to Andreas and Charles.

Interesting. You're my leading feed on LoRa. As a suggestion, on the pi, if you attached to a gpio a servo to open a vent when reading temp data, that would save the heating issues. I'm just waiting for some practical data transfers to see what this is really like.. I see it is one tenth of dial up for most applications. Shame really...but upto 2mb. Which is great. Also the test you did, it shows more than you think. Links (route paths TTL) has not been done on LoRa. This means that the performance could be increased. But... this maybe a Achilles heel as the same un optimisation is what makes it work. Non the less interesting as much as it is a retrograde solution.

I only discovered your videos recently, so I'm not sure if you have done a video on Ethernet over powerlines yet. This is very interesting technology generally making use of modem chipsets from Qualcomm or Broadcomm, and the bandwidth is surprisingly good considering the mains wiring was never designed to have good impedance characteristics for communication. In any event, this would have been a third candidate for connecting your gateway to the internet...

Love these video. I wonder since it’s been some time will you revisit this to see what new hardware is available?

Call me old-fashioned, but I have never been the least bit interested in anything wireless. However, having watched quite a few of Herr Spiess's videos regarding different wireless technologies, my opinion has gradually changed. Maybe one day...

Hi! I like very much your videos about lorawan. After 2 years what do you recommend as a "starter kit" with the Raspberry Pi to start a little project and fiddle a bit? Here in my area there is only 1 with a gateway, a few kilometers away, i'd like to make one too. Do you think the "RAK Discover Kit 2 - EU868" is still good or at the end of life? Thanks :D

Looks like competition is good. Both solutions appear to be around the same price now. The iC880A-SPI is €120. That's what I will go with

After watching the video, I've ordered a RAK831 shield for my Raspberry Pi 3. It has arrived yesterday and today I've installed it and found that the video is already a bit outdated because Charles Hallard has updated the scripts in the mean time: it's even more automated now with fewer manual steps. So better check the installation guide first - then you can skip a few steps of the video. Thanks to Andreas and Charles for the awesome work.

Hi Andreas yesterday I ordered my RAK831 (915mhz) I have wanted to do a build but Israel blocked both 915mhz and 868mhz and only opened up 915 in the last while. My single channel node works well it uses your 8266 (443mhz). I Plan to use a Orange Pi not a Pi zero I believe it is a better deal. It may be the First TTN node in Israel unless somebody get in before me. The RAK831 costs me 142$ with shipping on Aliexpress Orange pi about 10$ so 150$ is a bit low I think 200-230$. I am about 300m above sea level with line of sight of most of Israel costal cities . so I am hope to get a good range. Single channel gateways do not count TTN and I was on 433mhz with all the water meters of the city.

Great video. How could I determine if I am within range of the nearby existing gateways. It would be good also to see more vids on specific node sensor solutions that connect to these gateways. It seems that most information is about just building the gateways.

It would also be interesting to look at the LoRa antenna performance for this unit...

Hi Andreas... thanks so much for this tutorial. With your IoT network in your hometown, what sort of sensors have you deployed? I like the idea of the gateway and the IoT, but can't think of exactly what to use it for!

Andreas, this is really a very good video ! many thanks. I absolutely want to reproduce a gateway like this. First of all I have to buy a RAK 831 but would be better buy it in Europe otherwise in Italy I will have to wait a lot of time and be prepared to unpredictable expenses from customs regulation. So, do anyone has some information about where can I buy one of them in europe ? thanks a lot for your time.

Charles-Henri Hallard runs a company which makes open-source building control systems.

Looking at the thumbnail I thought the gateway was a physical gate :) But that would be sensible too, a remote controlled gate. Better than one of our customers who has a second burglar alarm panel down in their gatehouse just to control the gate. $15/month plus install costs just to avoid having to have an ethernet or fibre bridge to cover the 500+ metres between house and gate. Lorawan would actually be a good solution for that, you don't need much data or very often.

Very nice tutorial. When the price can get lower, everyone is going to have one. The price is still a little high. I wonder if something can be made with gnu radio SDR for the RF and LoRa PHY? This video is almost 4 yrs old.

If it was your home then it is a cute town where you live...:)

Hi Mr Spiess, Thankyou kindly for your videos. My fellow Techs and I like to watch your shows as they are more entertaining thank Netflix. I have a scenario that you may have a solution. In a remote environment, is it possible to have a group of sensors report to a central device in small data packets- where No LoRa connection is available? Each station would have the following parts . 1. Raspberry Pi 3 B 2 . SX1278 radio chip (SPI connection ) 3 . sensors. 4. LED display with basic alarm results. Each station could work in a stand alone "Mesh Simplex " environment at in an non interference band . Thanks

Interesting use of those SMD type pinheaders. I have seen those in KiCAD but haven't ever bought/tried any. I've never thought about using them over through holes before. I've been collecting different types of basic pinheaders and terminal connections lately. Do you have any suggestions for (cheap) stackable higher current capable pin header type connectors? I've got a bunch of 2.54mm headers, and a small collection of 2mm's. I've got screw terminals for 2.54mm and 5.1mm. My problem is that I'm always trying to squeeze too much in a small space and I still want to build in more. Like right now I have a small DC 'wall wart' taken apart. It has 24.5mm × 48mm × 45mm of space on the secondary side. I'm dumb enough to try to replace the original PCB w/Diode bridge that was occupying that area, and etch my own using an IC rectifier, LM317, feedback passives, adjustment pot, banana terminals, and an AliEx PIC16 voltmeter. It sure would be easier to build it with 2 double sided PCB's and a couple of stackable connectors that are spaced more than 2.54mm. I know I could connect multiple pins in multiple locations, but it just seems like the kind of thing a product could easily fix ;) -Jake

Thanks for the great video. I'm looking for the RAK831 somewhere in Europe to prevent hassle with customs when shipping from China. But I can't find it. Any hints?

Merci viel Mal Andreas

Hello Andreas, I am collecting the parts to build a gateway. Is the supplied antenna really the best choice or what would you recommend? I thought there was already a video on your channel via different antennas, but I can not find it right now. Steffen

I bought an SX1276 868Mhz LoRa module(RFM95w) from robokits and tried to communicate a simple “hello world” message with ’ The things network ’ . I used an arduino UNO to connect with my LoRa module and the library I was using was the arduino LMIC library. Since I am from India, I checked the frequency plan in the things network and found that the frequency range for India is 865-867Mhz. So in the downloaded Arduino LMIC ibrary, I made changes in lorabase.h and ttn-abp code for arduino-RFM95 connections. I edited the European frequency values to Indian frequency values. I tried using activation by personalization (ABP) for communicating with the things network. There was a gateway in our area and all I know about the gateway is that it is an RAK831 gateway. I tried to send the message to the things and I could receive the messages in the thing network. It all worked fine… Now I bought an RAK7243 gateway from Aliexpress which is a latest version of RAK831. Actually RAK7243 is considered to be slimmer and cooler than RAK831. The SD card showed a website where we could download the firmware.I loaded the software and the OS raspbian stretch lite in the raspberry Pi 3B+ and connected the gateway to internet using WiFi. I used putty to access the raspberry Pi from my computer using a LAN cable. Raspberry Pi was configured for WiFi settings and I could get internet. I checked pinging Google.com and I got response from Google which means internet is connected in my gateway. I looked for my ethernet MAC address and made the changes in global_conf.json where I entered this MAC and the things network server address for Asia region. In the global _conf file downloaded, I could see the frequencies were the same which I used in my LoRa module library. SPI communication was enabled. Then I registered the gateway in the things network. I gave the gateway ID, checked the semtech packet forwarder dialog box and also properly gave the region, operating frequencies, location and antenna position and registered…The antenna used was rubber duck (2dBi and 50 ohm). The gateway was seen as connected with green symbol…each time I switch on the gateway, the power(Red led) will blink and (green led) also blinks for sometime (may be a few 10 seconds) and after that only red LED blinks. Now I tried the same hardware (LoRa module and arduino UNO) and the same arduino LMIC code, which I used to communicate with the gateway in my locality. But this time, it was not working. I didn’t receive any message in the the things network… Is it the problem with the gateway or my LoRa node? I checked for the status in the gateway using raspberry Pi command… It showed the message, gateway is active(running).Could anyone please help me to solve this issue?

Guten Tag. Ich bin aus Russland und ich mag Ihren Kanal. Ich würde merh Geräte mit LoRa sehen. Danke.

In the video at 9m20s there is a sudden reference to packet forwarder, is there a reference missing to a git or other fetching of the code ?

Does this build require a connection to TTN or can it be used w/o the WAN feature?

Next Video Andreas, How to build your own Lorawan Gateway Concentrator !!

Hi Andreas, do you think ESP32 will be used with RAK831 for Lora gateway in the future? I am just wondering hahahah

Hi Andreas, where exactly is the differance between the Gateway you build in this Video to the Gateway from Episode #124? I would like to use a LoRa-Gateway in my house and Connect it with maybe 20 Temperature and humidity Sensors. Is therefore the cheap Gateway from Episode #124 usable? Thank you really much in advance, Klemens

How are you finding the range? I've had a RAK831 for a few months and I get maybe 800 metres from it max. I even got a custom 915MHz antenna made for it and it didn't seem to help all that much. Aside from that I found the things network stuff to be a total mess. I ended up writing my own software to drive the concentrator and do the LoRaWAN session tracking etc.

Can anyone recommend a supplier within the EU where an end consumer (not a company) can buy the BOM parts? Both digikey and mouser seem to ship from US.

Hi Andreas! I’m in search of a good outdoor antenna for an outdoor LoRa Gateway .I remember you tried a LoRa ground plane antenna from ebay. If I'm not mistaken it came from the Czech Republic, I can no longer find the video in which there was the link in the description. Could you send me the link or recommend anything else?

Andreas, What do you use Lora for? Just playing or you have real application?

Andreas Some advice Please. I live in a area that I'm going to have to have a Antenna very high to get line of sight. Instead of putting the Control Box up on the Antenna, I'm thinking of running a very long Coaxial from Antenna down to Pi and RAK831 control box in house., does that sound right to you ?

Will RAK831 Gateway work with a different company's node which is built on SX1262?

What if I want my private gateway (without connecting to TTN) ?

just clicked on the link above for the Rak gateway and the was listed with an exorbitant price of € 836,46

Hi Andreas spiess How does the LoRa module for gateway differ from a LoRa module for node!?

Next, how to build one’s own LoRa Server?

Looking at the RAK831 vs RAK833 any ideas?

Another advantage of indoor gateway: Someone steals your outdoor gateway and they have your WiFi password on the SD card. At the very least you will want to notice when the gateway goes AWOL and change your WiFi password ASAP... maybe include something to detect and notify when there is a lack of communication.

Whats the diference between ic880a va rak 831?

Hello Andreas, greetings from Peru, congratulations for your excellent work! I would like your help, I will tell you quickly. I have proposed to implement a monitoring system for warning of landfalls in my city, for that I am thinking of setting up a "Wireless sensor network", I have researched and want to use LoRa technology, but I am still learning and your videos have helped me a lot to elaborate my possible solution. Please correct me and guide me if you think something is wrong in my plan: the system is made up of 3 sensor nodes (since there are 3 streams), each of them has a microcontroller (I want to use arduino), a LoRa module (maybe use the RFM95W like in your video #117) and the sensors, that's all. I have seen that each one can be configured as a transmitter or receiver, but the detail is in the "Gateway", if I have 3 sensor nodes mounted in the way I explained to you, I would need to be able to use a Dragino gateway, but it would have to be multichannel TRUE? Those are very expensive, I saw the way you built the gateway yourself, but the limitations leave me in doubt... Besides, you use Raspberry 3 or 4, although I saw another that you used a raspberry zero. Since your videos are from 5/6 years ago. As of today, what components do you specifically recommend using? What do you think of the structure as such? What is the best way you recommend to develop the gateway? Or if a single channel gateway would work for my 3 sensor nodes?

So, ... we'd have to get the RAK831 Gateway which is priced at $999 at aliexpress at the moment .. Does there not exist open-source PCB's and build guides on how to build your very own multi-channel Lora Gateway without spending hundreds of dollars? I have so many LoRa transiver chips, and so many Node PCB's sitting .. but nowhere can I find a guide that will help me build a 8ch gateway from scratch. Please help?

How is this compare to the $15 LoRa Gateway you built in #134?

do I have to use tan server to get the data received by LoRa Gateway? Can I post the data to the http server?

Gateway is not connected what is my problem??? pls help me

Hi there I am very new to this Lora things as I am in South Africa, Iam trying to find info about building a multi channel 100+ can you please (the guy with the swiss accent ) please point me in the direction i need to look

The RAK board is everywhere out of stock, but they have the RAK7246 WisGate Developer D0. Is this a good alternative?

who is better rak831 or sx2178 gateway? which has more channel? and support more devices?

Anyone tested rak831 range

i have build it like you. What is todo for TTN V3?

OMG, yes, this: Bleeding Edge -> Leading Edge -> Mainstream

🧿

hi, I have things outdoor gateway. can u help me?

Updates?

First

The module now costs $999

Andreas did you see (and expect to test) the ESP32 to ESP32 Wifi 802.11LR goo.gl/MBsL82 on ESP32 from espressif => 1 Km transmission ?

So do we call this the 'Spiess RAK' ( goo.gl/images/u7qnRD ) :-D